Birth to 100 and Beyond
Stories may come from any stage of life.
Childhood, adolescence, adulthood, elder years, and beyond.
A public oral history project preserving the stories, experiences, and wisdom of people from every age and stage of life.Through a recorded conversation, participants share a meaningful chapter of their journey. Those conversations are crafted into written stories and become part of a growing archive celebrating the beauty, resilience, heartbreak, humor, and wisdom of the human experience.
One conversation. One story.
No cost to participate.
Storytelling as legacy. Listening as medicine.
Who Can Participate?
Anyone with a story to share.
Birth to 100 and Beyond welcomes people from every age and stage of life. Including expecting parents sharing hopes and dreams for a child yet to be born, parents speaking on behalf of preverbal children, and individuals reflecting on the many chapters of their lives.
Whether you’re sharing a childhood memory, a life lesson, a turning point, a relationship, a challenge, a moment of joy, or a vision for the future, your experiences contribute to our collective understanding of what it means to be human.
Every age. Every stage. Every story.
What Happens?
- We schedule a conversation.
- We talk about a meaningful chapter of your life and the experiences that have shaped your journey.
- I craft your story into a written narrative.
- You review the story, make any changes you’d like, and approve the final version.
- Together, we select a title and photograph that capture the spirit of your story.
- Your story becomes part of the growing Birth to 100 and Beyond archive.
The Growing Archive
Birth to 100 and Beyond is building a living archive of human experience.
Current participants range in age from 4 to 89, with stories representing diverse backgrounds, life experiences, challenges, joys, and perspectives.
Each new story adds another piece to the collective story of what it means to be human.
Beyond
When I first added the word Beyond to this project, I wasn’t entirely sure what it meant.
Over time, I’ve come to understand that Beyond is, in part, about the stories that continue after a life has ended.
It is an invitation to share the story of someone who mattered to you. A parent, grandparent, sibling, spouse, child, friend, mentor, teacher, or loved one whose life left an imprint on your own.
Who were they?
What did you love about them?
What challenged you?
What did they teach you?
How do they continue to live in your memories, your choices, and your heart?
These stories are not only about loss. They are about love, legacy, remembrance, and the ways people continue to shape us long after they are gone.
Because some stories begin before birth.
And some continue beyond death.
The Vision
The goal of Birth to 100 and Beyond is simple but profound: to gather at least one story from every age, from birth to 100 and beyond.
As the archive grows, these stories will eventually be brought together in both a digital collection and a published book—a living record of the human journey across a lifetime.
No single story can tell us what it means to be human.
Together, they can.
Support the Project
Birth to 100 and Beyond is offered at no cost to participants.
If you believe in preserving stories, honoring lived experience, and ensuring that more voices are heard, you can support the project through a donation.
Your support helps make it possible to continue gathering conversations, writing stories, expanding the archive, and moving closer to the project’s vision of preserving at least one story from every age. From birth to 100 and beyond.
Every contribution helps ensure that more voices are heard and remembered.
Thank you for helping preserve a living record of the human experience one story at a time.
Share Your Story
Whether you are 8, 48, or 98, your story matters.
One conversation.
One story.
One voice at a time.
Entering the Story
Each story is written in the first-person voice of the storyteller, as though they are speaking directly to you.
In these stories, the storyteller speaks and you listen.
The Scribe is present in a different way—listening, gathering, and shaping what was shared into written form.
What emerges is a meeting of three:
Storyteller
Listener
Scribe
Not every detail is included.
What remains is the essence.
The meaning it carries, the truth within it, and the way it continues to live.
Storytelling as legacy. Listening as medicine.
Always Realizing Something
Emily-77 Always Realizing Something If I had to name the way I move through life, I think I would borrow the words of my grandson
The Life That Was Waiting for Me
Kelly-46 A Purpose to Tell the Truth A part of my purpose in this lifetime is to tell the truth. Maybe that is one of
Speak Up and Wait
Jennifer-61 When “Speak Up” Isn’t the Solution Recently, Melania Trump encouraged victims connected to Jeffrey Epstein to come forward and testify. And something in me
The Path I Didn’t Know I Was Asking For
Maria-63 The Crisis This story begins in a moment of crisis that unlocked a door to an entirely new identity and life path. If I
A Simple Day of Hope
Hope-Turning Five I’m Four Today I’m four today.But I’m turning five on my birthday.March 30th. I share my birthday with three people.Nay Nay…and my
A Day that Holds it All
Jack-83 and Beyond March 30 I was born on March 30. A day that has carried more than one meaning in my life. On my
Back to Myself
Stephanie — 38 “Some things just have to play out before you can see them.” I Didn’t Think I Had a Story I didn’t think
The Turning Point
John-Age 75 “Every turning point in my life came down to the same choice: security or growth. Each time I chose growth, even when it
A life is made of moments that are often easy to overlook while we are living them.
Birth to 100 exists to pause, listen, and preserve those moments before they disappear.
Because every life carries something worth remembering.