# After a diagnosis: their story, on their terms, only if they want it

After a diagnosis, people around someone often want to do something, and the person themselves mostly wants to be treated as themselves. This is offered in that spirit. It is a listener, not a project. It is led by the person, it can be five minutes or nothing at all, and it is just as easy to decline as to accept.

## What you give

A message from you, thirty seconds, played at the first visit if there is one. It says you would love their stories and that this is theirs to use however, or whenever, or never.

Visits by voice, of any length, on their terms. The interviewer asks about the ordinary life first: the places, the people, the work, the jokes. It does not ask about the illness unless they bring it up, and it does not steer towards endings.

Stories can be sealed for a particular person or a particular date, or kept entirely private. A book forms only if they ask for one. The recordings are theirs, and so is every decision about them.

## How to give it

1. Buy it once. There is nothing to renew and no timeline. If it is never used, nothing more is owed.
2. Record your message. Keep it ordinary: a story you want, said the way you would say it on any other day. For example: "Mum, I'd love to have your stories, starting with the one about the hospital job in 1978, because I've never heard how it ended. Whenever you feel like it. No hurry."
3. Offer it once, privately, and mean the "no". Then do not raise it again. If they want it, they will say.
4. If they say yes, let them set everything: when, what about, who can read it. You can be in the room or out of it, as they prefer.

## Questions to start with

See also: Questions to ask your parents that go deep (/questions/parents-deep)

- What did you want at twenty-five, and did you get it, or something better?
- Who was the friend who knew you best, and what would they say about you?
- What is a day you would live again exactly as it was?
- What do you believe now that you did not used to?
- What was the best decision you ever made that nobody noticed?
- What do you want us to keep doing, and what can we let go of?
- What is a story you have never told anyone, that you would be happy to have kept for someone?
- What makes you laugh, still?

## If they are hesitant

The person may not want this, and they do not need a reason. Some people want to tell everything, some want to tell nothing, and some want to tell one story and stop. All three are right. Offer it as something available, not as something they should do, and accept the answer. Nothing here counts down, and nothing will be pushed at them later.

Related: When someone is facing something (/for/facing-an-illness); How to write a legacy letter (or an ethical will) (/write/legacy-letter).

Tellforth: Your story, told in full, in your own voice, for the people who come after.