A story doesn't need an audience to be valuable.

A story doesn't have to be seen by the world to be valuable.

And yet, we can serve people by making visible the stories that would otherwise go unseen.

Something I haven't been able to shake for a while now is the thought of sharing the stories of people who never had the chance to tell them to the world themselves.

Because so often, these are the very stories that could help us as a society. The ones that reconnect us with one another. The ones that do us all good to hear—just as it can do a person good to be allowed to tell their own story.

Sharing stories with one another creates community. And we could definitely use more of that.

For years, I've felt the need to bring the younger and older generations closer together again. Because we can learn so much from one another.

I was judged time and again for wanting to make a profession out of “accompanying people.” After all, I didn’t have that much life experience myself.

Today, it is sometimes people from these very generations who come to me and ask for my support—while I, at the same time, learn an incredible amount from them.

And sometimes I sit in a conversation and tears roll down my cheeks.

For example, when a 60-year-old man, whose heart is absolutely in the right place, tells me:

“We used to print labels for wine bottles. Then, because of the war, the winemakers couldn't get any more bottles and couldn't sell any more wine.

Then we just sat there, twiddling our thumbs. None of us had ever experienced anything like it.

Someone had to go. And because I was the last one to come, I said I'd be the first to go.”

Or when a young woman who works in nursing tells me about being with a patient shortly before she died. What the doctor had instructed her to do. How sad the circumstances made her. And how that patient later appeared in her dream to say goodbye.

Yes.

Then I sit there on the call and I cry.

And afterwards, I pray.

Because so often I see people before me, trying to do the right thing—in a world where what's right can sometimes seem wrong, and what's wrong can seem right.

And I believe these stories should be told.

Not because a person has to be seen for their life to have meaning.

Not because the public eye is what gives a story its value.

But because some stories remind us of what was valuable all along.

I still lack the right impulse and the right support for how to approach and fund the whole thing.

I think I would like to visit these people in their homes. Set up a small podcast station there, sit down with them, and just listen. As personal and as authentic as possible.

I know there are many ways to make something like this happen. But I’m still missing that “GO” from above.

If you have any ideas, please feel free to share them with me.

Maybe one of you will contribute the very Missing Piece that I’m still lacking. :)

All my love, Lena