Begin the conversationBy Heart · Personal writing studio
Not just what went into it. Tell me why nobody else’s ever tasted quite right.
By Heart writes the details families know by heart, but rarely write down. For a person who is here to tell the story. For a person whose voice you can still hear in your head.
The work begins here
“She loved to cook” is true.
It is also not enough.
She kept the real recipe in her head, called a measuring cup “a suggestion,” and always made a second pie because your uncle would cut the first one before dinner.
That is the part worth keeping.
We do not begin with the death.
We begin with the life.
The writing
Choose what fits. If you are not sure, that can be part of the first conversation.
The facts belong in an obituary. So does the way he whistled while he cooked and the phrase everyone can still hear him saying.
For the person asked to speak who knows exactly what they feel, but cannot yet shape it into something they can say aloud.
A fuller account of a person: the childhood, choices, work, loves, mistakes, humor, and place they hold in a family.
A letter for one person, written for the day grief is loud again. A birthday. A wedding. An ordinary Tuesday.
Words for an anniversary or birthday when a social post is too public and silence does not feel right.
Many voices, one family story. Memories from relatives and friends are gathered and shaped into a keepsake meant to stay.
Living stories
Some stories should be written before there is a reason to mourn. Sit with a parent. Record how two people met. Ask who chose your name, what the old photograph leaves out, and why the family recipe was never measured.
“No, that is not how it happened.”
That correction may be the beginning of the best part.
Preserve a living storyHow it works
You tell the stories in whatever order they arrive. There is no performance and no perfect set of answers.
To the story everyone repeats. The contradiction. The phrase you nearly forgot. Then I write the piece around what mattered.
You correct, add, remove, and revise. Nothing is finished until the words feel true to the people who know.
A fictional demonstration
James loved music and spending time with his family.
becomesSaturday mornings belonged to James and Motown. Before anyone else was fully awake, Marvin Gaye would already be playing from the living room, and James would be at the stove making the same breakfast he had made for twenty years.
For funeral homes
When a family wants more than a form can hold, By Heart can step in quietly. The funeral home remains the trusted relationship. I do the listening and the writing.
Private by practice
Nothing is published, posted, or used to promote By Heart without clear permission. You decide what belongs in the piece. You decide what remains with the family.
Begin here
You do not need the right words. A name and a first memory are enough to begin.