The heart of the story

I’ve referred my readers before to Story Corps, the oral history project that sends recording booths out to various locations across the country and permits people, usually in pairs, to tell their own stories, as though they were in the kitchen having a cup of coffee. Some of the vignettes are broadcast on Morning Edition on Friday mornings. They always, always grab me by the heart and the throat.

There was the exchange between long-time friends Peter Obetz and Jeff Jarrett on the ever-changing landscape of their lives. “Our friendship is really the only thing that’s constant,” is a statement that applies to more than one person in my life.

Or the Valentine’s Day broadcast of North Carolina National Guardsman Tracy Johnson, whose wife, Staff Sergeant Donna Johnson was killed by a suicide bomber in Khost, Afhghanistan. Tracy spoke with her mother-in-law about receiving the notification of Donna’s death, and pushing to escort her home from Dover AFB.

Or the Veterans Day inauguration of the Military Voices Initiative, where Vietnam vet Harvey Hilbert recalled the sight and sound of a comrade who was killed more than 45 years ago; and Justin Cliburn spoke of coming to know two little boys when he was deployed to Iraq in 2005.

Story Corps is celebrating its tenth anniversary this year. Yesterday, there was the conversation between Will Smith and his daughter Olivia, about how he felt being a 27-year-old single father, raising an infant daughter, at Bowdoin College in Maine. Their initial exchange was recorded last year, just after he was diagnosed with colon cancer. The update recording between father and daughter goes into how Olivia helped Will through his treatment.

You should listen to it. Not just read the story; listen to their voices. Listen to all the voices—Justin Cliburn, Harvey Hilbert, Tracy Johnson, Peter Obetz and Jeff Jarrett.

These are extraordinary stories, and all are—at the heart—about love. We could all use some of that.