The Narrative Experience

I sat with "Vincent" in his bright pink dining room, pictures of his family mounted on the walls, and a faux pipe organ speaker set in the corner.  We began the interview as I had with the prior 6 and asked what story he would share with me about his experience nearing the end-of-life.  He spoke of his faith and belief that evidently his time was approaching and if the Lord decided his life was ending, so be it.  As he shared his attitude that "if he was going to die, he was going to die" he stumbled over his words.  In a moment, I realized he had started to cry and he revealed more of these emotions when he removed his glasses and began wiping the tears that began to gather.  I couldn't help but begin to cry myself.  In the past, I battled my own emotions for the sake of being an impartial researcher.  Later, when I realized that there was no such thing as impartiality in research, I began to embrace my emotions and join participants in their journey by ignoring these reservations about showing my own vulnerabilities.  I never fully wanted to admit to advisors or committee members that participating in interviews in such an emotional way was my identity as a researcher, for fear of disapproval, until Vince uttered the exact thoughts that were on my heart:


M: Okay.  How do you think your family and friends would react to the story you shared with me today?
V: This story?
M: Yeah.  I mean either this story you just told or the first one.
V:  I think that they would probably react about like you did.  Probably about the same.
M: What do you mean by that?
V: Well, you were uh became quite involved in it.  It was something that you hadn’t heard before.  And you, you became part of it.  Very suddenly and uh, I appreciated that.

I argued this same sentiment at a conference earlier this year... to listen to a participant narrative is to become part of that person's narrative.