Old Friends--Material for Memoir Stories

Yesterday, an old friend and her husband stopped here for a visit on their way from Phoenix to northern Minnesota. Zoe and I hadn't seen one another for 12 years in person. We have kept in close touch through email, skype and phone calls over the years. It's kept our friendship alive. But seeing this friend who had been seriously ill last year was better than all the emails rolled into one. Being able to put my arms around her and hug her is something I've wanted to do for a long time. We had a wonderful visit all afternoon and into the evening, and then again at breakfast before they hit the road again.

This morning, I read a post at Our Echo website that told about reconnecting with a friend of long ago. Veronica Breen Hogle (one of the Guest Bloggers here a couple of months ago) wrote about a friend who found her after many years of no contact. You can read Veronica's story here.

We all have friends who have meant a lot to us at one time in our lives. Whether we've kept in touch through the years like Zoe and I have, or whether it was like Veronica and Bridget, it doesn't matter if the friendship was a good one. The memories of things you've done together are like precious gems and should be carefully kept. The memories of things we've done with special people, places we've gone with them, or difficutlties we've lived through with them are--all material for memoir writing.

You don't need to write a full memoir book. If it involves people in your past, it can be considered memoir. Write about the people who have meant something to you. Use your relationship and happenings wtih them as a part of your family stories that you leave for your children to read later. Or use it to illustrate a universal truth of some kind in an essay and send it out for possible publication.

Longtime friendships can be treasured, but they can also be shared in memoir pieces. Pick one friend and wirte about her/him today for a writing exercise.