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The brain turns into a carnival when we tell our stories. According to neurobiologists, lights switch on in our heads. Neurons fire more rapidly. Synapses make shotgun connections. Oxytocin, a natural feel-good hormone, can be released in floods, whether the story is happy or sad. Through the simple act of telling, we are reimagining ourselves. This doesn’t occur only when we share our own stories. It happens even more spectacularly when we hear the stories of others. Through listening, we can have as many lives as we want. We can be the child riding her first bicycle, or who’s just learned to throw a baseball. The miner trapped down the shaft. The woman who survives breast cancer. We tell each other what’s happened to us not only because we want to know we’re worthwhile, but also because we want others to feel worthwhile. Stories are almost inevitably reciprocated. We speak, we are attentive, and our lungs begin to fill with the breath of life. We are captivated by the music of what might happen next. When all is said and done, when the last sound goes off in the darkness, everything can be taken from us—our houses, our identities, our health, our loved ones—but our stories remain. Through our stories, we survive. My father died in February of this year. He was 85. He went gently, no tubes, no oxygen masks, no screeching late-night ambulance. Earlier, my mother sat by his bed and sang him “The Last Rose of Summer.” Cairo. Red. He had sometimes worn that rose in his hatband. Somewhere far away in time, but not in memory, a tent door was flapping. —Originally published on Oprah.com in August 2015
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