“I’ve been wanting to start writing about my life,” said the 76-year-old woman last fall on the first day of “Turning Your Life into Story,” a class that I designed and co-teach at the Wisdom Center at Most Precious Blood Church in Denver.

Open to anyone age 55 and up, the five-session class teaches writing practices and offers resources for those who want to turn their lives into stories for family, friends, or a wider public audience. The outpouring of stories is riveting.

In one session, participants listed three unsettling experiences. Anne Mack wrote (quoted with permission): “At 15 I started going to sub-deb dances and was horrified to find myself a wallflower. I went to a private girls’ school and didn’t know how to talk to boys. (Couldn’t dance well either!) I prayed to die, but God didn’t take me.”

In another session, elders wrote six-word memoirs modeled after the popular Smith magazine Web site (and books). One writer quipped, “She read, wrote, blogged, bore(d) kids.”

In another session, participants wrote letters of gratitude to someone they felt they had never adequately thanked. These letters might never actually be sent to the person to whom they are addressed, as it may be an enemy, historical figure, or deceased person, or the letter might be sent to a friend, relative, or acquaintance. Elders shared these letters with eighth graders who had also written letters of gratitude. The eighth graders go to school in the same parish where the course was held.

One 14-year-old, whose mother had died two years ago, was paired with a slim grandmother whose frail frame and nearby walker belied the strength of her voice. The elder revealed to the eighth grader, “I was heartbroken when my mother died. I was 11.” Another elder, Lucy, later said that her eighth grade partner’s letter had been “so expressive and so compassionate!” The eighth grader had written to a troubled relative, and her letter expressed caring without disclosing confidences. Lucy exclaimed, “I wanted to be related to her!”

While the pairs weren’t relatives, elders and eighth graders did meet on common ground: as writers of the stories of their lives.