This is just a heartbreaking, beautiful story from a No Dull Life book I am working on. My client—we’ll call her “Bridget”—had a hard childhood. By the time she was six years old, her father had been sent to prison and her mother had begun spending almost every day and night at the tavern, leaving Bridget to care for her three younger siblings. Finally, the State removed the children from their home, placing the younger two in foster care and the older two with grandparents. Bridget had every reason to turn her back on her mother and harden her heart to protect herself . . . but that’s not what she did:

I am passionate about writing the stories of “everyday people,” but I enjoy reading famous people’s memoirs too. Especially if the famous person is one I believe I’d have been friends with if our paths had only crossed. In that category, I just finished listening to Brandi Carlile’s “Broken Horses” memoir—which is awesome, because I’m going to hear that heavenly talent in concert tonight, so maybe our paths will cross? Brandi (we’ll be friends now, so first names) is amazing, and she ended her story with this reflection on the importance of our stories:

Write your life. No matter how young or old. Even if you feel like you’re not interesting enough, do it. Believe me, you are. Your life is in fact twisted and beautiful. And you’ll find that as you peel back the layers, the unexpected side effect is that it feels wonderful to be known, even if it’s just by you.

The people whose stories I’ve been privileged to write report similar feelings. It’s true. You should tell your story.

A man I recently interviewed for a No Dull Life book traces his family back to the very part of Europe on which many of us have recently been focused. His ancestors may have felt some of the same fear and sorrow that today’s refugees are facing:

In the winter of 1874, a group of Russian Mennonites seeking religious freedom arrived by ship in Philadelphia. They came from Volynia, a region of Russia in the northwestern part of present-day Ukraine. The Mennonites were pacifists, followers of the Dutch priest-turned-Anabaptist reformer Menno Simons. Their numbers had grown despite religious prosecution throughout Europe that forced them to move frequently. In the late 1770s they had been welcomed into Russia from Germany by Catherine the Great, who had promised them land and the ability to preserve their culture through self-rule. In 1874, however, czar Alexander II implemented universal military service with no exemptions for the Mennonites, forcing them to find a new home in order to remain faithful to their beliefs.

Ultimately, about ten thousand Russian Mennonites came to the United States. After landing in Philadelphia, some went to North Dakota and some went to Canada, but most took a train as far west as they could go—eventually landing in the small towns of Cimarron and Greensburg, Kansas.  They had sold their farming equipment to fund the journey, so they arrived with few material goods and almost no money. Many had no place to go and survived the cold winter by living in boxcars.