Once again, I am going to quote Benson Boone.

He is the young singer I mentioned in my last two columns.

He sings “Beautiful Things,” the song which my grandson just loves.

Only this time, I am going to reference a song he entitled, “Momma Song.”

It, too, is beautiful. But unlike last time, I won’t ask you to listen to it.

Instead, I am going to quote a couple of the lyrics.

You may wonder why I am using this space to quote the words of someone else?

After all, this is Julie’s article, not Benson Boone’s.

And yet, his words are ones I wish I could have written.

They are important enough that I believe everyone should hear his message.

He sings: “Take me down your old street.

Tell me your memories of when you were young.

And when you fell in love.

Drive me through the country.

Tell me your story.

And you can play all of your favorite songs.

‘Cause I’m gonna need this when I’m holding pictures of you.”

There’s more, of course.

But you get the point.

I thought for a moment about making a plea to those who are still fortunate enough to have either or both their mother or father.

I wanted to tell them in this little section of the paper, my little corner of the world, why it is so important to ask your parents questions.

I wanted to tell them to ask to hear stories about their lives.

How did they meet?

When did they fall in love?

Why did they fall out of love?

What did they want to be when they grew up?

What is their all-time favorite song?

What was their favorite book?

Was high school difficult for them, too?

Anything and everything you really want to know about your parents is something you need to ask … before it is too late to ask.

Parents don’t talk about themselves.

Did you every notice that?

At least, they don’t discuss their lives very often.

For they are focused on the lives of their children and grandchildren.

Parents never put themselves first.

Perhaps that is why they don’t talk about themselves very much.

They think no one will care.

We should care.

We should care because they set aside their wants and dreams to change diapers and sing lullabies.

Like I said, I thought for a moment about making a plea to those who are still fortunate enough to have their parents.

But then I realized how younger generations do not really read the newspaper.

If they pay any attention to the news, it comes from online sources or Tik Tok videos.

Most of you who still read the paper may no longer have your parents in your life.

For that, I am truly sorry.

But I do understand that pain.

You see, I didn’t know a lot about my dad. I still don’t.

I have mentioned how he served in Vietnam and didn’t speak of war. Nor did he talk about himself.

The little I do know I learned from my mom, and what I know is too sad to write about.

And yet, I did write about it when I spoke at his memorial service.

Being an adult is hard, isn’t it?

We blink and people are just gone.

No, today, I am not going to make a plea to younger generations and ask them to question their parents and grandparents about their lives so they will know more about them.

Instead, I am making a plea to parents, to grandparents.

I am asking that you be responsible for writing down your stories, telling a few secrets along the way.

We need to be the ones who answer the questions that aren’t being asked.

We need to let our grandchildren know who we were and explain why we loved them the way we did.

We need to provide for the ones who are uninterested right now, all of the answers they will want to know when they decide to look back and wish that they had asked.

Tell them who you were rather than leaving behind a few photographs.

Pictures fade.

And the ones that don’t … pictures saved to our phone or in the cloud, those can easily be forgotten, deleted, erased.

There is so much more to a person than how they looked in a photograph once upon a time.

So, tell them your story. Tell them your favorite song.

Take them down your old street. Share with them your memories.

Let them know why they are here, why they were born.

Share with them how your family came to be.

Tell them it is because a little boy pulling his vegetable wagon of horseradish down the street to sell for his family, stopped and held the ladder for a little girl washing windows for her mom. It’s an amazing story, and one I wouldn’t even know about had my grandparents not told anyone.

Maybe not now, but one day, the people you love the most will want to know about you.

Make sure when they look at your photograph that you left them with the answers.

(Stenger is the community editor for the Herald-Star and The Weirton Daily Times. She can be contacted at jstenger@heraldstaronline.com.)