Many of you have followed Circle 3 Productions for long enough to remember her. She was the woman who inspired the documentaries, the travel, my journey as an artist - everything.
She was my grandma. And she was a star. Quite literally, Starr was her name. Since the first time I heard her story, she was the one I wanted to see walk the red carpets.
My grandma was a Moroccan Jew who immigrated to the U.S. at the tail end of WWII. She left her family forever (as a 16-year-old girl) in an attempt to create a better life for herself (and them) here in the States. As fate would have it, she never got that chance for her family to join her. Once arriving in the States, her connection with them was severed for nearly 60 years. And in that 60 years, her story began to hide behind the tears of her last goodbyes, behind her fears of the war she left, and behind the chilling fact that her family may no longer be there if she returned.
60 years was also long enough for something else to develop that was lying just beneath the surface for my grandmother - dementia. It wasn’t until she was in her 80s that we were able to reestablish a connection with my grandmother’s 109 family members (now living in Israel). As her story began to unfold though, her grasp on that story also began to fray at the edges. (You may remember some of those clips from a blog I wrote a few years back.)
I spent most of my childhood with her filming any short piece of content I could to try to pick up those scraps. To try to piece together a puzzle of a life… of a story that was worth telling.
And I am so glad I did.
As you can learn from that same blog post, my grandmother passed away sooner than we expected. Every year since, it has been those same videos that have kept her story, her voice, and her passion alive. Anytime I find my eyes welling up with memories of her, I turn on grandma’s documentary and it is as if she were right back in the room with me.
The older I get, the more my desire for coming alongside other people to tell their stories, and to work through their same legacy grows. Because a story untold is a story unheard. Despite how much we love our relatives and the journeys they are on… those journeys will have nowhere to live if we are not the ones to make sure they do.
Stories like my grandmother’s in the war... or your Uncle Rob’s opening up that first bakery in your town… or even your own personal battle through the ups and downs of this life.
The greatest gift I ever gave myself was taking the time to pick up my camera and sit with my grandmother in her own journey.
It inspired me then, and it inspires me now… to make sure that any and everyone who wants to be able to have that same experience with their loved one can.
So, Friend, if this story of my grandma’s feels anything like you or your loved one’s… feel free to reach out to us. More info at the link below!
Blessings,
Luke