How to Create a Written Heirloom: Aviva Black's Approach to Family Memory-Keeping
Show Snapshot:
Learn how to preserve your family's most meaningful stories with Aviva Black, founder of Family Love Letters. Discover how a heartfelt letter from her late father inspired Aviva to help others capture intergenerational connections and family history before they're lost to time. This conversation reveals practical techniques for drawing out powerful memories from loved ones, creating tangible heirlooms that transcend time. Whether you're seeking a meaningful gift for parents, hoping to preserve grandparents' wisdom, or reflecting on your own legacy, this episode offers valuable insights on creating tangible keepsakes that bridge generations and ensure family stories live on for years to come.
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Quotable:
My older clients will share that to age wisely is to not take yourself so seriously and not to think so much about aging.
Transcript:
Katie Fogarty 0:00
Katie, welcome to A Certain Age, a show for women who are unafraid to age out loud. I'm your host, Katie Fogarty. Beauties, today we have a truly special guest whose work touches on something deeply human: the preservation of our stories and memories. If you have ever wondered how your children, your grandchildren, will remember you and your family members, what stories will be passed down and which ones might be lost to time, this is a conversation for you.
Our guest today has made it her mission to ensure that your family stories aren't forgotten. Aviva Black is the founder of Family Love Letters, a bespoke legacy gift that documents and captures the story of our loved ones to be passed down from generation to generation. If you are looking for a way to preserve your family stories, if you are in search of a one-of-a-kind gift for a parent or grandparent, or if you are simply curious about the power of genealogy, generational storytelling, and the art of asking meaningful questions to elicit powerful connections, stick around. We have a phenomenal conversation ahead. Welcome, Aviva.
Aviva Black 1:15
Hi, thank you so much for having me, Katie. I am very excited.
Katie Fogarty 1:19
I'm excited about this conversation because the business that you have brought to the world is something that I feel like my family needs. My father loves genealogy. He shares so much of our family history with us, whether it be old photos or snippets of historical facts. I know that your work is really rooted in the personal—you help families share their stories and family history—but a letter from your own father set you on this journey, and I would love if we could begin by having you share with our listeners how you came to launch Family Love Letters.
Aviva Black 1:56
Oh, thank you. Yeah, everything led to this point. So my father was sick for a number of years, and when he finally died at 78, my brother, sister and I were in his study going through his things. I'm actually sitting at the desk that was in his study, and I opened the top drawer, and underneath his brass letter opener and well-worn deck of cards, there was an envelope that had a label that said "To Arie, Adina and Aviva."
And I opened this letter, and honestly, I was just captivated from the start and started to read it aloud to my siblings, and we literally laughed and we cried. I mean, this is in the week of my father's death, so it was a very personal letter where he shared his stories, but also his expectations of us. He was a rabbi who walked the walk and talked the talk, and he had expectations of us to be citizens of the world. So that was in the letter, as well as his humor and his love for my mother and each of us. So this was really a love letter to us, and that's why I named the company Family Love Letters.
Katie Fogarty 3:32
What a remarkable gift to open and receive during a time of major, major loss. When did you decide that this experience of reading this powerful letter needed to be brought to a wider audience?
Aviva Black 3:46
So it took me about six to eight years. I founded the company Family Love Letters in 2018, and through that time between when he died and when I began working with others, I was revisiting the letter. I would revisit it—I still do to this day—to both connect with him and to feel grounded and inspired. I'll go back to different parts of the letter.
And what occurred to me was that it's almost impossible to do this on your own. I mean, my father was a rare bird. I don't know how he had the discipline to do it, but I can imagine him at his Apple II with that little box that you might remember. I can imagine him sitting there and typing away and really being engaged with the process of sharing what he was sharing, and seeing the urgency of it. So I wanted to make this easy and enjoyable for people to do. I just wanted people to have a way to share these thoughts, these perspectives, now while they still can. And so that's why I brought it to the public.
Katie Fogarty 5:05
So what is your process? Walk us through how you work with a family to preserve their stories. What does this type of collaboration typically look like? What does a family get in the end? What is the artifact that you are creating together?
Aviva Black 5:20
Yeah, thanks for asking. I mean, it's funny because, you know, we all go through a stage when we're first starting a business where we have one process and then we hone it as we live and learn. So in the beginning, I used to do a combination of having conversations with people by phone or by Zoom—actually, no, it was FaceTime. This was pre-COVID. I didn't even know what Zoom was at the time, so it was phone or FaceTime. And I would also give them homework, but I found that by giving them homework, it felt like there was a responsibility, that there was something they had to do, and honestly, it wasn't getting done.
So over time, I've created this process where I meet people where they're at. We have several lengthy conversations—I still do by phone, and now maybe by Zoom—where all he or she has to do is show up. I ask questions. Of course, there are follow-up questions, so it feels like an organic conversation. And then from those conversations, I aggregate the content and craft a letter that's written from the individual to the family, and primarily in his or her words, so that the family recognizes their loved one.
And then at the end, the person, the individual, will receive a package with original copies. And that is really intentional, because I hold the letter—the same pages that my father held. And to me, that tactile remembrance is very powerful, so I print original copies for the client to sign and then distribute to the family. And then there's also a digital copy that contains a very short audio clip. And the question I usually ask the client is, "What is something that you want to share with your family about their family?" And so that's something that goes to them as well, and they can share that widely.
Katie Fogarty 7:33
I love that there's an audio component as well because—I don't want to sound morbid—but I've been saving voice messages from my parents on my phone, because I just feel that there may be a time... I mean, well, there will be a time. To be human is to walk the mortal coil, and we have a beginning and an end. And so I've been saving those, and I love the idea of having a little audio component to this, and I love the idea that you have a letter.
So after you've done this sort of interview conversation project with your client to craft this letter, what comes next? Do they get to review it? How long are these letters typically? I'm sure that it varies family by family.
Aviva Black 8:16
Yeah, so right, I left out that important piece: the letter belongs to the client, even if it's an adult child that hires me to work with a family member. It's the family member that has final say as to what goes into the letter. So for sure, he or she reviews the letter before it's finalized. And there are two ways of doing that. One is, if they want, I will send them the letter. They can print it and mark it up, and then we'll review it, or they can make changes directly onto a Word document.
But another way that's so beautiful is I offer to read the letter aloud to the client. And I love that, because that gives the client the opportunity to absorb everything that he or she poured into the letter. And at the end, when I say "Love, Mom" or "Love, Dad," there's always a pause after, and then I hear, "Wow." So it's just a beautiful, beautiful part of the process, of the experience of working together.
Katie Fogarty 9:33
It's a gift for the creator, not just the recipient, the way you're talking about it. How wonderful to be able to sort of mine your life and share your stories and think about what it is that you're wanting to leave behind—just your legacy. So I have a question for you. How do you help draw meaningful stories from people who might initially say or think like, "I don't have anything interesting to share," or "I'm not sure what I should be doing in this moment"? What is a sort of jumping-off point that helps you encourage somebody to become open to you?
Aviva Black 10:06
Yeah, well, you're a journalist, so you know about this. Some people really feel that they have nothing to share, that they've just led an "ordinary" life, and they have no stories. And of course, like you, I don't believe that. I truly believe that everybody has stories and wisdom from learned experience to share.
So there are people who are more private, and what I say is that I will not force anybody into revealing anything that they don't want to. But I am that person who is neutral. It's kind of like the person sitting next to you on the plane—now you talk about more intimate things with that person, for some reason, than you would with maybe your own family member. So I start off asking broad, open-ended questions, and then I'll ask a follow-up question, and they'll go where they want to go.
And I will tell you that most people, most people, when asked, will answer questions. They're really happy to be seen and to have someone who's there to listen. So I just ask open-ended questions and then follow-up questions that will reveal a little more detail without it feeling like prying. It becomes a full story, and it probably feels like a conversation. You know, when someone's thinking like, if they feel like they have to show up with their best story, there's pressure. But when you're connecting with somebody who's curious and asking those open-ended questions, the conversation flows. I've experienced that as a podcaster. If you've ever...
We're heading into a quick break. When we come back, I want to ask you about what, if any, themes that you see and hear from people, and what are the types of stories that people are excited to share. We'll be back in just a minute.
Katie Fogarty 12:31
Aviva, we're back from the break, and when we went into it, we were talking about the power of being curious and asking open-minded, sort of broad questions to really encourage people to share their stories. And you've been working with people since 2018. I am curious to see if there are any broad themes that have emerged, or do you feel that every person's story is sort of singular and distinct?
Aviva Black There definitely are some broad themes. They include looking back generationally to identify the values that have been passed down, and they might show up differently between the generations, but let's say the value of family—that is a theme that shows up again and again, how family comes first. And what's interesting is that that applies even to situations where there's a rift in the family. People still will say family comes first. So that's something else that I explore with them.
And then another theme—or I shouldn't say theme, but something that people really take to heart when I ask them about how they met their beloved—and that is true for the person whose beloved is still right there next to them, or for someone whose spouse has died. It gives them an opportunity to talk about what drew them together and what kept them together.
Another theme for sure is what's most important and how you define success. And what I love about this question is that the answer is so different depending on the age of the client.
Katie Fogarty
So Aviva, what ages do you work with?
Aviva Black
So I will work with people—you know, any adult I will work with. I do work with some people who are in their 50s and early 60s, but I will say primarily my clients are in their 70s and 80s. And this year, I had a slew of 90-plus-year-old clients, which is just amazing.
Katie Fogarty 14:24
Do they share their secrets to getting to the 90s?
Aviva Black 14:29
Actually, so this is what I was going to say just a minute ago. You know, what's most important for someone who's in their 90s is very different than what's most important to someone who's in their 50s. And really it's just simple things—which are not so simple—but family, good health. Actually, health is number one on the list: good health, that is the most important.
So the thing that they share, like Julia Louis-Dreyfus in her show "Wiser Than Me," the thing that my older clients will share about how to age wisely is not to take yourself so seriously and not to think so much about aging. So that is a common theme as well.
Katie Fogarty 15:14
That is fascinating. It's so wonderful to have these different conversations across different age ranges and see these sort of patterns that emerge. And I love Julia Louis-Dreyfus's "Wiser Than Me" as well. It's such a phenomenal podcast. It's so well produced, and her guest list is extraordinary. And I love hearing the wisdom that these women have to share. It gets me excited about what's coming down the pike.
I am curious, without revealing any—you know, this is obviously a client sort of relationship, and of course, there's privacy involved with it—but was there a particularly moving experience or story that you heard that you uncovered while you're helping families preserve these memories that sticks with you?
Aviva Black 16:00
Oh, wow. I mean, Katie, there's so many, and it's such a privilege to work with people, because I learn from these conversations. But yeah, I mean, there was one man who I worked with very early on, and this is how I knew that I was in the right place and doing the right thing.
So his family came over from China, and he came as a young boy. His father was actually stabbed and died, and he witnessed that in San Francisco, and he became kind of the man of the family at a very young age. His family was poor, but the value of education and working hard and family are what carried him through. And in his letter, what he wanted to convey, especially to his grandchildren who grew up with money, is that they have the opportunities that they now have because of the sacrifices and hardship that their grandparents, great-grandparents, went through. So that was a very moving story that he shared.
There's one more that I also want to identify by the same client. So this client has two children, and it was evident that he and one of the children—they had a tight bond because they had similar paths. She followed in his professional footsteps, and this son didn't. And when I work with people to reflect on their—you know, talk about their children, because this is a letter that's going to be kept forever, and it's a love letter—I want to make sure that there's equal time paid to each of the children.
So he had gone on and on about the one child, and then the other child, he was having a hard time identifying anything that he admired, let's just say. But as we started speaking about the traits that his son had and how they showed up, he had this light bulb go off, and he actually said, "I see now that you are successful." And he described why. What were the things that the son was doing that showed this success and these admirable traits.
And to me, that was a really powerful time together. And what I do with patients is not therapy, so I don't want you to think that, but it is therapeutic in that way. And now the son and the daughter, they each have this letter, and for both of them—also for the other child who had the tighter bond with the father—that child can see, "Oh, right, so he also thinks highly of the other child," and it's important for both children and the grandchildren to see that.
And the postscript is that the father, the one who wrote the letter, he died about a year and a half after we worked together. He was pretty young in my book—he was in his early 80s. So it's especially poignant to have these lasting testaments.
Katie Fogarty 19:31
Absolutely. I can only imagine what a gift for the family to have that. It's similar to you opening up a letter from your father and hearing testament to the love that he had for you, that this family got to hear the testament to the love that he had for each of his children, and to get to hear his sort of final thoughts. What an incredible gift to the world.
I am curious. Aviva, you and I both know we're recording this podcast over Riverside, right? It's similar to Zoom. We live in an age of incredible technology. You and I are having this conversation because of technology. We live in a world where we document so much of our lives on a daily basis. We have Instagram and Snapchat. People don't eat salads these days without letting the world know. So I'm curious to hear your take on the art of this more intentional storytelling to capture part of ourselves in a world where we have a constant stream of social media posts and photos that we create as well. How do you see these as differing?
Aviva Black 20:42
Yeah, so I guess I would ask you, Katie, you know, do you prefer to look through your photos on your phone or to sit down with a photo album?
Katie Fogarty 20:53
That's a great question. I like both. Can I go—see, I like all of the above.
Aviva Black 21:00
Yeah, well, that's true. I mean, and actually, I have all of the above from my father. I have a letter. I did a StoryCorps—one of the professional StoryCorps booth recordings with him. I have video. So I have everything.
What I would say is that there's something to be said for the hard copy, the thing that you can hold in your hand. When I meet with clients, even in the introductory phase, they get so excited to show me a booklet from a great uncle who they never met that was passed down, that he had written. And to me, you know, I guess that would be the same as sharing something that's passed down online, but the difference actually is that it's in one place.
So we have, like in social media and in text, you know, we have all these snippets of a person. Even on Ancestry or 23andMe, you have pieces of the puzzle in order to try to build the full picture. What this is—this letter—is turning over the leaf on that family tree. It's who is this person as told by that person. And so that's the difference to me.
And it's something that is not a memoir, you know. It's not going to sit on a shelf. It's not a big book, a thick book that's going to sit on a shelf, and while the owner of this book will be proud to own it, will never open it because it's too daunting. It's something that can be read over and over.
And so I actually—I don't think I answered the question of how long the letters are, which for this answer is important. So the letters do vary, Katie, as you said, depending on the clients, how they tell the stories. I would say that they range between eight and 12 pages. That being said, I've had clients' letters that go all the way to 18 pages. And then I've had a few clients who maybe are in cognitive decline whose letters are more around four or five pages.
Katie Fogarty 23:26
Yeah, 12 pages is a long letter. I mean, that's a beautifully long letter. And I hear what you're saying about this sort of tangible, sort of a talisman that you can return to again and again. And I'm thinking of a letter I received many, many years ago from a very dear friend. It was a Christmas letter that she shared with her extended community, and she was sharing the story of recognizing, after a period of years and testing, that one of her three children had sort of profound learning issues related to a chromosomal abnormality. The details are not important.
But what was so important was this sharing of this information in this beautiful form, the love that she and her family sort of poured into this child and pulling the rest of us into this conversation. And I kept that letter—I'm actually crying thinking about it—I kept that letter in my bedside drawer for years, and I would look at it sometimes when I wanted to be reminded of how beautiful people are. So I can't—you know, with such a powerful letter, I think that letters have that ability to connect so deeply. So I'm going to stop crying in a minute, Aviva.
Aviva Black 24:42
Thank you for sharing that, Katie.
Katie Fogarty 24:45
It was such a wonderful gift. So for people who are thinking about perhaps offering this gift to somebody in their own life or to create it for themselves so they can share it with others, I want to ask you to put yourself in the recipient's shoes, because we've been talking a lot about the letter writer right now. When a future generation, maybe a grandchild or somebody else, looks at it, what do you hope and think that they might glean from spending time with this letter?
Aviva Black 25:19
Yeah, well, I mean, as I mentioned, I have my father's letter, right? So I'm on the recipient's end, and I also worked with my mother over COVID on her letter. And I'm excited for my kids to have the letter. I actually haven't shared it with them yet, because even though they're now—I could, I guess—but they're in their early 20s, and I want to give it to them at a time when it will really resonate, actually, when they'll really appreciate it as well.
So the hope is that they're not only learning about their family member, which is a big part of it, surely, but they're understanding that this family member's stories—which include stories about their great-grandparents and their great-great-grandparents and extended family—that it will tell them more about their family and, in turn, themselves. And they'll learn that everybody goes through struggle. Their family members likely went through multiple struggles and got through those challenges. So the resilience is built over the generations.
But overarching the entire concept of these letters is the link through the generations. I'm Jewish, and we have this tradition at a bar mitzvah ceremony, where the bar mitzvah kid, the 13-year-old, is up on the pulpit with parents, grandparents, if there are great-grandparents who somehow are still alive—lucky child in that case, right? But the generations are up there, and the Torah scroll is taken from the ark and is handed to the eldest of the family members and then passed down person to person. They literally pass the scroll to the subsequent generations until it gets to the child.
And the idea is that from Sinai through all of this child's generations, that scroll, and all the traditions and the wisdom and the ritual, everything—and struggles—were passed down to the child. They were able to get to this point, and now that child will, in turn, pass it to future generations. So it's that same concept that we're all connected. None of us exist in a bubble. We're all connected to family, past and present, to mentors, to dear, dear friends. And so that's what I really hope that they see—that they get and glean from these letters.
And also, when you're thinking about a future generation too, letters are quickly becoming just sort of relics from the past, almost, you know. You and I are a similar age, and we came from the era where people did put postage stamps on things and put things in the mail. And I got letters at camp, and my husband and I wrote aerograms to one another when I was teaching in Japan and he was living in Hawaii, and my kids were like, "What is that?" They're like, "An aerogram?" And I mentioned that they were like, dumbfounded. So the notion of creating something physical and printing it and creating this future heirloom is so, so beautiful and so, so unique.
Katie Fogarty
So Aviva, quick change of gears here. I'm curious—you got into this because your father was a rabbi. He had the practice of communicating regularly with his congregants and speaking and created this tradition. How did you get involved with this, beyond your father? Fill us in a little bit on your background, and we know why you launched Family Love Letters, but tell us a little bit more about how you got here.
Aviva Black
Yeah, sure. So, like most of us, I had many other jobs before this, but I still feel like they all led to this place. So I've been a high school administrator and a middle school and high school teacher, history teacher. I was a good teacher, where I always brought in themes. And what's really interesting is that when I was—let's see, I guess it was about five years before I started Family Love Letters—a friend who does career coaching gave me a quiz. Not really a quiz—it was an exercise to do, and I was trying to figure out what it was that I would really enjoy.
And so what came out of it, this big exercise, what came out of it was that I like to give people experiences that they would not get in everyday life. So that's Family Love Letters right there. I really enjoy talking with people and going deeper. And so Family Love Letters—what I offer them is something that they honestly wouldn't get anywhere else. I mean, how often is it that someone's asking you about your family holidays, growing up, or what your parents were like, and just you have someone there to listen and to take it in?
So yeah, so it was all of those things, but I enjoy stories so much, and I love writing and editing and collaborating, which this is a collaborative process. So all of the things that came before that I mentioned—oh, I also at my synagogue, I started a program called Intergenerational Connect, where I connect through different activities, whether it be cards or delivery of food baskets from the younger people in our synagogue to the older. So they're not related, but it's a way to connect those different, otherwise siloed generations. I'm opening the gates there and making a personal connection. So, yeah, it was all of those things that brought me to this point.
Katie Fogarty 32:00
Yeah, the intergenerational connection is such a great way—sort of cross-pollinating and pulling, you know, different energy and experiences and lived wisdom, and then sort of putting it into like a mixing bowl where everyone can kind of tap in and benefit from it. So I love that you have drawn upon all the things that you've done in your past to get to this moment in time.
Having these conversations, I feel like, reminds me of the podcast. It reminds me of talking to people, pulling out what's interesting, hearing their stories and what they're doing. Do you think you could have done this when you were younger, or to help people sort of shape and share such intimate stories? Did you have to get to midlife to be able to really do this effectively, or could you have done this when you were younger?
Aviva Black 32:47
I think my father's death, not just receiving the letter, but my father's death was integral, because I'm no longer able to have the conversations with him. So that was huge for me, and so I have to draw on conversations I had. But I always had these types of conversations with people. I just love going right there, you know, without being too forceful. I do like going deep, you know, in conversation.
But I really do think that it's the experience that I've had. And also I will say that because my father was a rabbi, I saw him interact with all types of people and people of all ages. And I've always been drawn to people who are older. I have friends, but, you know, actually, one of my closest friends is 75, so she—yeah, I knew that was coming. So I'm 56—I have no problem saying it. Great. I'm 56 and I just favor friendships with people of all ages, and we have so much to learn from the people who are older than us. But no, I don't—I think I could have done this, but I don't think I could have done it as well or as easily as I am doing it now.
Katie Fogarty 34:15
And Aviva, for somebody who's listening, who's intrigued and thinking, "This could be like an incredible Father's Day or Mother's Day gift or just an incredible gift at any point during the year," how much does something like Family Love Letters cost?
Aviva Black 34:26
Yes, so my signature package is $1,800 for the whole letter package experience.
Katie Fogarty 34:34
And how long does it take from start to finish?
Aviva Black 34:37
It takes six to eight weeks. And what I will say is that once the—let's call the person the adult child—gifts this to the elder family member, they don't have to do anything. So I do all of the work, and the same goes for the client who I end up working with. All he or she has to do is show up for the calls. So six to eight weeks is the time it takes for me to do the work on the back end.
Katie Fogarty 35:04
Okay, terrific. And so my final question for you is, what is—I guess I was going to use the word "surprising," but maybe what is the sort of the most meaningful thing you've learned about human connection and family bonds and just aging in life in general through this work?
Aviva Black 35:22
Yeah, I mean, there's so many lessons, Katie, but one that I will say is that there are always going to be ups and downs in generational connection. There'll be times when there could be a rift, and there are times when people are feeling closer with certain family than with others. But what I would say has come out of this is that for almost all of my clients, like 99.5%—even the ones that do have those struggles with family members—family is so important, and the wish from the client to the children and grandchildren is that they remain open to one another. And that, to me, is priceless, because at the end of the day, what is more important than the people who are closest to us?
Katie Fogarty 36:18
What a beautiful note to end on, Aviva. Thank you so much for this conversation today and sharing more about your work and for jogging a beautiful memory in my own mind about the power of letter writing to make us feel connected to one another. I have so enjoyed this conversation, and I want to make sure that listeners know where to find you. So please put them in action. Where can they learn more about you and Family Love Letters?
Aviva Black 36:42
Thank you. So you can go to my website. It's familyloveletters—make sure you have the S on the end—familyloveletters.com and you can also find me by the same name on Instagram and Facebook. Thank you, Aviva.
Katie Fogarty 37:01
Thank you so much, Katie. It's been a pleasure.
This wraps A Certain Age, a show for women who are aging without apology. I adored this conversation. Aviva is so thoughtful and smart. I love hanging out with people who are curious about asking questions. It's one of the things that lights me up about podcasting. It was such a pleasure to hear Aviva's thought process, how she started her business, why it's so meaningful to her and her clients. I truly enjoyed the show. I hope you did as well.
Thank you for sticking around to the end. If you enjoyed the show, if you learned something, please share it with some friends. Please write an Apple Podcasts or Spotify review. Reviews are like a love letter to me. I so enjoy reading them. I read every one. They truly light me up. Special thanks to Michael Mancini, who composed and produced our theme music. See you next time and until then, age boldly, beauties.