All of us stories

In the end, we're all stories.

If there's an afterlife, which I disbelieve, then there are precious few ways of reaching back from afterlife to life with a status update. Once breathe is gone from our lungs, and the fire out in our brains, synapses still; there is nothing left of us among our friends and family other than our stories.

Or rather their stories. Their stories of us.

And that's the only thing anyone can guarantee as an afterlife. We will be the stories told by those who choose to remember us.

I do not know my great grandfather's name. But I know he fled from his home in Finland during the first World War. Finland was under Russian occupation and Finnish boys were being conscripted to the front lines to die for glorious Mother Russia. My great grandfather borrowed a Swedish friend's passport (this was the days prior to photo ID) and fled Finland under a false name. He entered the United States through Ellis Island, and then mailed the passport back to his friend, changed his name and moved to Western Canada and started a new life. And he did this all, knowing only two words of English: 'Yes' and 'No'.

I have no idea how accurate or inaccurate this story remains. The story was told to me by my mother. She based her understanding of it on her mother's story and the other details she could unearth. My grandmother based the story upon the tales told to her by her father, my Great Grandfather.

I do not know how much of the story has changed. I do not know my Great Grandfather's name. But I know his story. And I have told it countless times to friend and family. This is his afterlife, his story continues on because I tell it.

I hope that when I die, I will have left a story- even if only one- worthy of being retold across generations.

This is the engine that drives Blood Red Dreaming.