Your story, your say: a guide for the person whose life it is

Picture a woman named Dorothy. She is eighty-seven, and her daughter has just put a tablet on the table in her apartment. "They want me to tell my life story," Dorothy says to the aide who brings her coffee. "I told them there isn't one. I raised four kids and kept books for a lumberyard for thirty years. Who on earth wants to hear that?"

Dorothy is made up, but you have probably heard her, maybe in your own voice. This article is for you, the person whose story it is. Your family has their reasons for wanting it, and so does the staff here. You should hear what is in it for you, what it is actually like, and the part that matters most: you are in charge of it.

"Nobody wants to hear about me"

Here is a fact that surprises people. In 2022 the polling firm YouGov asked more than six thousand American adults about the people they had lost. Nearly half, 47%, said they regret not recording or writing down a conversation with someone close to them who has since died.¹ Those people were not wishing for a celebrity's memoir. They were wishing for their mother explaining how she made the gravy, or their grandfather saying why he left the farm.

The same survey found that 44% of adults would like someone to preserve conversations with them. And 31% said they would not. That is worth saying plainly: if you are in the 31%, you are in good company and nobody should push you.

But if your hesitation is "nothing I did was important," think about Dorothy's thirty years at the lumberyard. Her grandchildren have no idea what a ledger book smelled like, how she handled a contractor who would not pay, or what it was like to be the only woman in the office in 1962. To them that is not ordinary. It is a world that no longer exists, and she is one of the last people who can describe it.

What feels ordinary to you is a lost world to the people who come after you.

Looking back is something people do anyway

If you have caught yourself replaying old scenes more often lately, that is not "living in the past." In 1963 a psychiatrist named Robert Butler, who went on to become the first director of the National Institute on Aging, argued that reviewing one's life is a normal and nearly universal part of growing older.² He thought it could help people make peace with their lives. He also warned that it can stir up regret. Both parts are true, and both shaped how Porchlight works.

Researchers have since tested structured life review many times. Across 128 studies, people who took part in reminiscence or life review came out a bit better than comparison groups on several measures. The biggest gain was on what researchers call ego-integrity, a feeling that your life as a whole made sense.⁵ One well-known study of people who had just moved into a nursing home found that those who went through a life review with a visitor had less depression and hopelessness a year later than those who simply had friendly visits.⁴

Let me be careful here. Those effects are modest, most of those programs used trained interviewers, and none of this research tested Porchlight. Telling your story is not a medicine and I will not pretend it is. What it can be is a few good hours with someone listening, and a record that outlasts you.

What it is actually like

Porchlight was built for people who do not want to fuss with technology. If a staff member or family member sets it up, here is what you will find:

• One big button. No password and no app to download. Someone opens your private link on a tablet or phone, and the screen shows a large button and large text.
• The question is read aloud in a warm, recorded voice, so you do not need to read the screen at all.
• You just talk. Take your time. Wander off the subject if you like. The best stories usually come out sideways.
• It starts gentle. The questions come in a set order that begins with easy things, like the house you grew up in or a favorite meal, and builds slowly. A computer is not choosing questions to probe you.
• When you finish, it waits. After you finish a story and go quiet for a few seconds, a short countdown appears and the next question comes by itself. If you start talking again, the countdown stops. If you would rather tap for the next question yourself, staff can turn that feature off for you.
• Skip anything. Every question can be skipped.

The screen also works in Spanish. When I described the design on The Aging Well Podcast, I put the goal this way:

“is meant to start off very low key, put them at ease, not to labor on anything negative.”

Patrick Donahue, on The Aging Well Podcast⁶

You decide what gets told

This is the most important part of this article. Nobody is owed your hard chapters. Not your family, not the staff, not a tablet.

Researchers have found that not all remembering is good for you. Going back over old grievances again and again, which they call "bitterness revival," goes along with more depression, while remembering that helps you make sense of who you are goes along with feeling better.³ So if a question brings up something you would rather leave alone, skip it. If you want to talk about a hard time because it taught you something, that is your call too. You can tell the part you choose and stop there.

Some practical points:

• Before you begin, ask the staff to show you the consent form and the page that explains who sees what. You can opt out.
• Tell staff if there are subjects you never want brought up. Communities can note topics to avoid on your profile.
• If you find a question upsetting, say so to a person. Porchlight does not detect distress. That is a job for the people around you, and they would want to know.

If you would rather not look back at all

Some people do not enjoy reminiscing, and some days you will not be in the mood. Porchlight has a Just for fun track with present-day questions: settle a friendly argument (is a hot dog a sandwich?), pick between two silly choices, or make something up. It is there for the days when you would rather laugh than look back.

Who gets to hear it

Your stories go to two kinds of listeners.

Your family. Family members you have invited get a private page where they can listen to your stories in your own voice, read them, and keep copies. They can also send you voice notes, which you can play. A grandson three states away might answer your story about the lumberyard with one of his own about his first job. Your family can also suggest questions they have always wanted to ask you. You are still free to skip them.

The people who take care of you. Staff turn over in senior living more than anyone would like, and new faces show up all the time. Porchlight turns your stories into a short summary for your care team, so the aide on a new shift knows you were a bookkeeper, that you like the Mariners, and that you take your coffee black. Your family already knows you. The summary helps the people who are just meeting you.

If you have ever been called "honey" by someone who did not know your name, you understand why that second listener matters.

When words get harder

Some residents find talking harder than it used to be, because of a stroke, dementia, or just a tired day. Porchlight has a gentler setting for that: questions with simple choices, a slower pace, and a warm stop if two questions in a row go unanswered. Family and staff can also add stories on your behalf, clearly marked as told by someone else, so the people caring for you can still learn who you are.

Something you can do this week

You do not need any technology to start. Pick one story you have told at a dinner table more than once, the kind your family groans at and then asks for again. Tell it to someone this week: a grandchild on the phone, the aide who brings your coffee, the neighbor at lunch. Notice who leans in.

If you want to keep going, ask your community whether they use Porchlight, or ask a family member to look at the family plan. And if you decide this is not for you, that is a real answer too. In my experience, though, most people who say "I have nothing to tell" are wrong about that.