Journal of Aging Studies 34 (2015) 162–168

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“Shadow stories” in oral interviews: Narrative care through careful listening Kate de Medeiros a,⁎, Robert L. Rubinstein b,c a b c

Department of Sociology and Gerontology, 375 Upham Hall, Miami University, Oxford, OH 45056, United States Department of Sociology and Anthropology, University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC), 1000 Hilltop Circle, Baltimore, MD 21250, United States Center for Aging Studies, University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC), 1000 Hilltop Circle, Baltimore, MD 21250, United States

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history: Received 15 October 2014 Accepted 21 February 2015 Available online 14 March 2015 Keywords: Narrative Interview Qualitative Childless Older adults Women

a b s t r a c t In most narrative approaches to understanding old age, the primary object of interest is the told story. However, what is often overlooked in narrative research are the untold stories – the silences, gaps, and omissions that form a type of shadow story or a story that lies just below the surface of what is said or written. This paper presents an illustrative case example of Constance to demonstrate how careful listening can help uncover hidden stories in an interview. In this case, Constance mentions two people (her brother and husband) as being important in her life yet omits them from the majority of her interview. The interviewer is able to uncover a hidden story with regard to her brother, learning important details about their relationship that would have otherwise gone unspoken. Overall, findings point to the importance of untold stories both in terms of content and as a way to empower the speaker to address topics that he or she may have otherwise thought were not of interest to the interviewer. © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

In most narrative approaches to understanding old age, the primary object of interest is the told story. Understanding what Phoenix, Smith, and Sparkes (2010) call the “whats” and the “hows,” or the ways in which the story tellers and story analysts/interviewers narrate and make sense of stories, is the focus of narrative analysis. What are often overlooked in narrative research, however, are the untold stories—the silences, gaps, and omissions that form a type of “shadow story” that can stay hidden behind the spoken narrative (Rogers, 2007). In these shadow stories or stories of omission, missing people, places, events, and other details form possible stories through their absence. Recognizing such gaps through careful listening and subsequent probing for more information can bring these shadow stories to the surface. Uncovering shadow stories can in turn be an important act of narrative care. Such careful listening enables the interviewer to engage the teller in talk about missing elements, creating a jointly ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (K. de Medeiros), [email protected] (R.L. Rubinstein).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jaging.2015.02.009 0890-4065/© 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

constructed narrative that goes beyond surface events and instead reflects a deeper level of understanding between the teller and interviewer (Bruner, 1990; Mishler, 1986). As such, listening and responding to shadow stories become a type of narrative care. In fiction, telling stories through omission is a well-known literary device used by writers such as Melville, Faulkner, Hemmingway, Joyce, and others. With respect to Joyce, Balakier (2010) describes how ellipses, dashes, and other breaks in the text tell a shadow story in his short story, “The Sisters.” Through hints and subsequent silences in the story, Joyce creates a space within the written text for unspoken narratives about the central character, Father Flynn. For example, when talking about the start of Father Flynn's decline before his ultimate death, the narrator's aunt says, “It was that chalice he broke….1That was the beginning of it. Of course they say it was all right, that it contained nothing, I mean. But still….They say it was the boy's fault” (p. 9). As Balakier argues, the gaps 1

Ellipses are used in the original story.

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become “associated with dark truths and possibly unanswerable questions” until ultimately “What is not said has more significance than what is indeed said” (pp. 239–240). Although no direct accusations are made regarding the priest's relationship with the narrator (a boy), it is strongly suggested through changes in topics of conversation, unfinished sentences, and other devices, that many were suspicious of the priest's motives and actions. In this example, an important story being told is the story that is never voiced but is instead alluded to through missing talk. While fiction differs from everyday talk, there are many ways that a convention such as telling through omission in fiction can inform how we understand oral interviews. In the writing process, the author can carefully select and sequence events and plots, thereby purposefully embedding hidden stories. In the interview process, joint meaning is built in the moment through a series of questions and responses, assumptions and confirmations, and rapport building that occurs as interviews unfold (Kvale, 2008; Mishler, 1986). Interviewers actively shape what the tellers reveal through their reactions to the tellers' stories. Elliott (2005), for example, argues that in pushing tellers to be succinct or “on topic” in their responses, interviewers may suppress the tellers' stories. People, events, or other details that are introduced by the teller but not subsequently recognized or affirmed by the interviewer may be dropped from the teller's unfolding story. The risk in an interview is that what is left may be the story that the interviewer wants to hear, which in turn may be only a small part of the larger story that teller could potentially have revealed (de Medeiros, 2005, 2013; Mishler, 1986). Careful listening for missing talk or events, much like carefully reading a story for clues regarding its full meaning, can therefore help the interviewer to draw out more potentially untold stories. Gwendolyn Etter-Lewis's (1991) work is an excellent example of the importance of omission in oral interviews. In studying the narratives of older African American women in reference to experiences of racism and sexism, Etter-Lewis found that what her tellers didn't say told a story that was as important, if not more so, than what they did say (West, Lazar, & Kramarae, 1997). Specifically, Etter-Lewis used brackets to mark missing nouns and pronouns in the interviews, which she later interpreted as representing oppressors whom the women had encountered but would not name. For example, some women she interviewed began their sentences with a verb, rather than a noun (e.g., “Told me to sit in the back”). The nouns and pronouns of the oppressors—a bus driver, a shop keeper—were omitted as if to distance the proximity of their actions in the past from the person telling the story in the present. In other interviews, women did not use the firstperson pronoun “I” to describe themselves and actually omitted reference to themselves entirely, as if to separate themselves from their racist experience. In practice, the majority of narrative texts in gerontological research do come from oral interviews. In analyzing transcripts from such interviews, the focus tends to be on the “whats,” or the story itself, rather than on careful consideration of the “hows” (Phoenix et al., 2010). In this paper, the “hows” extend beyond what is commonly included in the description of the methods, such as the interview guide, length and frequency of the interviews, place where the interview occurred, and the general use of probing questions for clarification. Instead the

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hows include the interviewer's observations of place: e.g., where did the interview take place? Are there personal items, such as photos or other symbols of significance, that can provide insight into the story? (de Medeiros, Rubinstein, & Doyle, 2013; Rubinstein, 1987). The purpose of this paper is to explore the “hows” in reference to finding and revealing shadow stories in oral interviews. It will therefore consider the structures and practices that influence oral interviews: the joint construction of meaning, the importance of listening, and how power structures influence a narrative. An illustrative example will be presented to highlight how some shadow stories are revealed while opportunities to explore others are lost. Overall, the paper will contribute a missing aspect in narrative gerontology that overlooks process when considering content. Structures and practices that influence oral interviews In considering how omission functions within an oral interview, there are three key ideas: the joint construction of meaning as talk unfolds (Holquist, 2002; Holstein & Gubrium, 2011; Mishler, 1986), power structures that shape what is told and in what way (Etter-Lewis, 1991; Rubinstein, 2001), and the importance of listening. Joint construction of meaning One way that the joint construction of meaning has been explored in oral interviews is through a dialogic perspective, whereby “at any one time and place, there are conditions that give a word a meaning at exactly that time and place that would be different if it were uttered at any other time and place” (de Medeiros, 2013, p. 54). Both the interviewer and the teller bring their own worlds of meanings to the interview, to include the meanings and understandings they apply to words, to the topic of the interview, to each other, and so on in an attempt to establish a better understanding of the other's perspective. Reynolds and Taylor (2005) describe narratives as being “produced anew on each telling and shaped to the purposes and context of that telling, including the context of the research interview” (p. 200). Through exchanges in talk, each “tests” the other in a way that Bamberg (1997) describes as a tension between narrative as a representation of the meaning that some personal experience has had, and narrative as a performance that falls between story and the actual experience. Events may be omitted to move the story along in one particular direction instead of another so that as one portion of an event is told, another is omitted. Given this joint construction of meaning that occurs during the interview process, one is left with questions concerning how much of the told story really speaks to the teller's experience versus the interviewer's interest (Bamberg & Georgakopoulou, 2008; de Medeiros, 2005). Listening A key component in the co-construction of meaning during an interview is the interviewer's ability to listen carefully and with purpose. Listening is also an important component of narrative care, which will be discussed later in the paper. Talmage (2012), in reference to research interviews, writes

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that “‘understanding meaning’ is…more than a passive task of deciphering what a respondent has in mind. It involves determining the central theme of the respondent's [teller's] talk, relating the talk of the respondent to the research topic and to the questions and prompting of the interviewer, and determining the biographical linkages and other horizons of meaning that the respondent references” (p. 295). What Talmage describes is the way in which the interviewer is able to make sense of the details in reference to the teller's story or stories through careful and purposeful listening. It is worth noting that although listening is acknowledged indirectly as a component in the joint construction of meaning, it is often not considered separately as a force that influences what is disclosed. Certainly within the scope of interview techniques, probing, repeating back what the teller has said, and asking additional questions are all part of the process, which are related to listening. However, listening as an independent act is rarely addressed but is important nonetheless. Power structures in the interview situation In addition to considering how interviewer and teller coconstruct meaning in terms of what is said and unsaid, it is important to also explore the underlying power dynamics that influence the interview itself (e.g., length and frequencies of interviews) and how such power influences are reflected in language that can lead to suppressed or disguised discourse. Given unequal power in the interview partnership (interviewer and teller), the teller may end up presenting a story that he or she thinks the interviewer wants to hear rather than one that reflects the teller's actual views or thoughts (Gubrium & Holstein, 1998; Holstein & Gubrium, 1995, 2011). As West et al. (1997) have also suggested, paying close attention to what's disclosed in talk or texts can show the workings of power dynamics not only through the presence of particular textual markers, but also through their systematic absences. Kvale and Brinkmann (2009), in acknowledging the power inequities that exist in an interview situation, write: “The research interview is not a conversation between equal partners, because the researcher defines and controls the situation” (p. 3). Despite the overall inequality between interviewer and teller, however, attempts can be made to minimize the power gap. For example, Rubinstein (2001) addresses the power dynamics present in the length and timing of interviews. Many interviews in research are described as a one-time encounter that unfolds over the course of an hour or so (Legard, Keegan, & Ward, 2003). Rubinstein argues that shorter interviews give more power to the interviewer since there is less opportunity for the interviewee to tell a complete story (Rubinstein, 2001). There is also less time for the interviewer and interviewee to build a sense of mutual understanding of and respect for each other. Since the interview is ideally a joint creation of knowledge, the shorter interview limits the degree and depth to which this creation of knowledge can exist. As Rubinstein writes, “Because of the lack of interview time and mutual knowledge, the categories and topics raised by the interviewer represent the greatest degree of ‘outsidedness’ to those of the informant” (p. 139). Other power inequalities that can affect interviews can be found in language itself. Etter-Lewis (1993) describes how

African American women's oral narratives contain a type of self-censorship or suppression marked by embedding and repetition of phrases and key words. This can be repeated phrases such as “It's just my opinion,” “I don't let those kind of things bother me,” or other statements that refer to a personal philosophy. Such phrases, Etter-Lewis argues, are places within the narrative to pause and consider questions such as “Why does this person need to keep affirming that something is opinion only?” or that he or she is not bothered by something? Such repetition may actually indicate that the teller is aware of power inequity and therefore tries to distance him or herself from the statement. The larger text surrounding such statements may therefore be a good place for the interviewer to search for clues as to what the underlying or shadow story is. Illustrative case example To explore further how meaning, listening, and power structures relate to shadow stories within an interview, an illustrative case study of Constance (a pseudonym) is included. Constance was a seventy-two-year old White woman enrolled in qualitative a study about generativity in the lives of women over age sixty-five who did not have biological children. Each participant completed three separate interviews, one week apart, with the same interviewer. The semi-structured interview guide was designed to introduce less invasive questions in the beginning and potentially more difficult or personally challenging questions in later interviews (see Table 1). Individual interviews lasted from one and one-half to two hours, for a total of around four and one-half hours or more for each participant. The timing and spacing of the interviews allowed for rapport to build up between the interviewer and interviewee (Rubinstein, 2001). This also gave the interviewer time to reflect upon the previous interview and to plan future questions on details that unfolded in the prior interview. All interviews were audio recorded with the participants' permission and transcribed verbatim. Names of people, places, and other identifiers have been changed. The study was approved by the authors' respective institutional review boards. Constance had been widowed for two years at the time of the interview. She lived in an upscale retirement community, in a large single-dwelling home. She was meticulous in her appearance, from her very thin, drawn-on eyebrows that gave her a surprised look, to her carefully outlined lips and creased denim pants. There are many instances throughout the interview when Constance repeats a phrase (e.g., “considerably older,” “I was fortunate,” “we were close”), which will be explored. Also, as the case illustrates, while Constance provides great detail on her college experience and her career, she includes very little detail on two men whom she describes early in the interview as being important to her: her late husband, Jim, and her brother Henry. By circling back to the untold story of Constance's brother in particular, the interviewer uncovered an important shadow story that shed light on Constance's larger narrative of childlessness in relation to him. It should be noted that the interviews were not conducted specifically with the construct of shadow stories in mind. Instead, the current analysis is based on how the interviews unfolded, with a critical eye to how they could have been better conducted if the shadow story construct was used. In contrast to the story uncovered about Constance's brother,

K. de Medeiros, R.L. Rubinstein / Journal of Aging Studies 34 (2015) 162–168 Table 1 Sample interview questions. Interview 1

1. Have you had any illnesses or situations for which you have been hospitalized over the past six months? Could you tell me what they were? 2. About how many close relatives and friends do you have right now? How often do you see or talk to your relatives and friends? 3. Who is the most important person in your life right now? How often do you see him/her? 4. Who lives (here) with you? What is his/her relationship to you? 5. What is your marital status? Are you married, widowed, divorced or never married?IF MARRIED: How long have you been married? What is your spouse's name?Were you ever married before? How many times have you been married?IF WIDOWED, also ask: How long have you been widowed? How long had you been married? How old was your spouse when (he or she) died? Was that your only marriage or were you married before?IF DIVORCED: How long have you been divorced? How long had you been married? Was that your only marriage? GET DETAILS.IF NEVER MARRIED: Did you or do you now ever have a companion or someone with whom you lived? How long had you and your companion been together? 6. Did you ever work? What did you do most of your working life? What did your spouse/companion do most of (his or her) working life? 7. Do you consider yourself retired? IF NO: What do you do? How many hours a week? Do you have any regular volunteer jobs? 8. What is a typical day like for you? Can you walk me through a day, the last day you had that was typical for you? Start with when you got up, and tell me what you did that day. 9. What are your main activities nowadays? What are your favorite activities at the present time? 10. Now that we have met and talked for a few minutes, I'd like to know more about you and your life. Could you describe your life for me; whatever comes to your mind about what happened along the way? Start where you like and take as much time as you need. Interview 2

1. Now, I would like to go back over what you have told me about your life so that I can get some further details. Let's start with your childhood. (The interviewer then questions the informant closely about each period in their life and “walks” them, step by step, from early life until the present day. In doing so, the interviewer attempts to integrate some of the key experiences that the subject has already mentionEd.) 2. Suppose you were asked to make a contribution to a time capsule, one that would not be opened for 100 years. What would you put in it? 3. Suppose, further, they asked you—as an older person—to write down some advice on how to live that you thought would be as good 100 years from now as it is today. What would you write down? 4. Do you ever feel that you are a living representative of a particular cultural, historic, ethnic or racial tradition? 5. Would you say that you think you family's history is personally important to you? How so? What things in particular? 6. Would you say that you feel your family's heritage or history? How so? Interview 3 Individual generativity:

1. Thinking about the last five years, what have been your most important accomplishments in life? 2. Thinking about your life as a whole, in your mind, what have been your most important accomplishments in life? 3. Considering your life today, do you want to continue in much the same way/change some parts/change many parts? What parts would you change? Why? 4. What things would you have done over in your life if you could? 5. Thinking about the last five years of your life, do you ever think that you've been at a disadvantage, in any way, because you have no children/children? Why didn't (did) you have children? 6. In the last five years, do you think that having no children/children has had any advantages for you?

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Table 1 (continued ) 7. Did you ever encounter any situation in which people looked at you differently because you did not have children? Do you regret having no children/children? If yes, a lot, somewhat, a little, not at all? (Elaborate.) 8. Many people think that the childless are unhappy, but many are quite happy. What do you think about this? 9. Is there anyone you've ever talked to about what's gone on in your life, your experiences and what you think they mean? 10. Thinking back to your early days, was there ever a time you knew you wanted to be childless? 11. When did you first realize you would be childless? 12. In some families, children are brought up with the expectation that they should and will be parents. How was that for you? 13. What did your family members think about your not having children? What about your friends? 14. All in all, describe the meaning that (having no children/having children) has for you.

the interviewer did not successfully return to the late husband. There were therefore missed opportunities to recover potentially important missing details that would have provided greater depth to Constance's overall story relative to her marriage. Ultimately, the case example will illustrate opportunities for narrative care that were realized and overlooked. Interview 1 In the first few minutes of the interview, the interviewer asked how long she had been married (thirty-four years). The interviewer than asked, “And was this your only marriage or had you been married before?” Constance replied, “Yes, my husband had been married before. He was widowed and I knew his wife very well. We were good friends. She and Jim were older than I. And considerably older. But I knew her quite well when we, we were quite good friends. When she died, two years later, we were married.” Constance later mentioned that Jim was thirty years older than she was, that he had four children from his first marriage, that she was very close to his children, and that she had had a good marriage. Later in the interview, Constance was asked, “So let's see. Um, so when you think about your friends, your neighbors, and your relatives, are there any other people who you would say are like you, who are very much like you?” She replied, “Susan probably is, probably, my closest friend. She is probably as independent as I am. The others probably aren't quite as independent and free-wheeling as I am. But that's okay. I still do as I please without being difficult, getting along with them.” It is worth noting that Constance describes her relationships with friends and family as “close” and herself as easy to get along with. Toward the end of the first interview, she was asked: “If you could, just tell me the story of your life. And you can start wherever you want and include or leave out any details that you choose.” She responded by talking about growing up in an East coast city and then moving when she was five because her father was called to serve in World War Two. She says: “So we moved. I just turned five. My brother is four and half years older than I. And we moved into an apartment. It was fine with me. I

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was always a very happy child. It was fine. New people. My brother was not so happy. He and I are very close.” Although this was early in the interview, it is interesting to note that the brother was not listed in the early question about people with whom Constance was close despite describing their relationship as close here. After briefly mentioning her happy childhood, she provides a rather lengthy description of her family's history in the area. She describes her family as an affluent family of historical significance, having inherited land from gentry who had established themselves during the colonial period. She describes the house itself, her initial struggles with public education and subsequent move to private school, her college days, her twenty-seven-year career with a nonprofit organization, and her eventual retirement. With respect to her husband, Jim, she mentions that he was originally her boss at her first job, prior to the nonprofit. She says: And that's where I met Jim. And I didn't even work with him. In fact, I thought he was a little strange. I didn't know him that well. But he seemed like a very nice man. Very kind. A good person. Good sense of humor and everything….And then things switched there and I found myself working with Jim. He was my immediate boss….And then of course I knew Jim's wife because I stayed friends with them. And they used to go up to my parent's home….Everybody knew everybody and enjoyed being together. And Jim's wife got quite sick and then she died, and then two years later, we were married. We had a wonderful life together. She refers to the “considerable” age difference between her and her husband several times throughout out three interviews, but only mentions the exact number (thirty) once. She also often mentions that Jim had children from his first marriage. Other than those details, which she repeats frequently, Constance provides few additional details about her husband (e.g., what he did for a living, what their life was like together) except to say that it was perfect. At the end of Interview 1 she adds: Uh, few rough times but for the most part we had an idyllic marriage with lots of fun. And we pretty much decided that we did talk about it. If children came, “okay.” But we certainly would not make an effort to have children. Jim had been there and he was, you know, considerably older than me. The idea of taking care of a baby now! He knew more about it than I because he had four. So, and it didn't happen. That was fine. And it's fine with him of course because he had already been there. But it was fine with me too. Since one of the topics of the interview was views of generativity and later life by childless women over sixty-five, Constance mentioned early on why she did not have children, something she repeats again in the subsequent interviews in an addition to words and phrases such as "it was fine,"“fortunate” and “close.” Interview 2 Since a week elapsed between interviews, the interviewer had time to receive and read the interview transcript to better

inform Interview 2. In reading the first transcript, one can see several possible shadow stories that emerge that could be more fully explored in Interview 2. The first involves Constance's brother, someone she identifies as being close to but for whom no real details are provided. She mentions him briefly in the larger context of family and childhood. Questions an interviewer might consider after reading Interview 1 are, “If her family had such a prominent name and place in the community, did her brother have children to carry on the family legacy? Did this influence her own decision to have children? Why wasn't the brother mentioned as someone she said she was close to earlier in the interview?” Other areas for potential consideration can be found in her use of the phrases such as “charmed life,” “I was quite fortunate,” and “considerably older.” These appeared often and may be of some significance to the teller's story. During Interview 2, the interviewer noted the following in the field notes: She cried throughout the whole interview. At first I thought maybe her eyes were just watering from an allergy because she was smiling but it appeared to me that tears were streaming down her face. It was kind of hard to see at first but then they started to flow a lot. She made one comment during the interview that she took after her mother, but it was interesting despite all of her talk about optimism and just going with the flow and not being bothered by anything that she seemed to be crying a lot. When asked to talk about things that stood out in her childhood, Constance replied, “So nothing has been major that has made a huge difference in my life even with—of course I met my husband but things have been major, wonderful and just been swept on into another part of life. I've been fortunate.” She later adds, “I wanted to get married and I wanted four children. But that was—but all the way through I guess I wanted to dance. That was the big thread in my life, wanting to dance.” Although she further explains that she studied dance through college, an injury and subsequent surgery made a dancing career impossible. After describing the surgery, she adds, “I've lived a very charmed life. Nothing has been traumatic in my whole life. I've had a guardian angel I think—nudging me this way and that way, so I have had a very fine, smooth life.” When retuning to the subject of children, Constance said, We didn't want it [a baby]. We didn't not want it. We didn't take major precautions not to have but it wasn't to be and that was alright. Because I said, you know, “If I get pregnant, is it going to upset you?” Because—I mean his children were grown and he said, “No. Not at all.” She uses the word choice of “upset” in reference to children as an undesired consequence, which they may have been, rather than something she said earlier that she had thought about as a child. This would have been an opportunity for the interviewer to pursue more information, which could have revealed an underlying story. One important place where the interviewer was able to bring forward a hidden story was in reference to the brother: Interviewer: Does your brother have children? Constance: No, he's a priest. Interview: Oh.

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Constance: He's an Anglican priest. No, well, as an Anglican he could have been married but he took vows of celibacy, and that's a choice. He thought he was going to go into the monastery but he decided against it. He enjoyed—he lived in New York and he still lives right outside and he enjoyed the world so much he finally decided, “I don't think the monastery is for me.” But, no, he doesn't have any children. So we're both the last of this line. The interviewer was then able to return to the brother again, toward the end of Interview 2. The interviewer asked, “How about your brother? Are you and your brother a lot alike?” Constance responded, We used to be. I haven't seen Henry now in years. He has not been well. We used to be a lot alike, but I was always more open and he was more—he'd hold it in. Of course, he was the first child and exceedingly spoiled because he was the first child.” In this passage, she contradicts what she said in Interview 1 about being close to Henry. As it turns out, she hasn't seen or spoken to him in years. The interviewer continues by asking, “And you say you haven't seen him in many years?” It is here, in the following response, where Constance's shadow story really emerges: No, he was not real happy when I got married. I think he always thought, because we were very close and he knew he wasn't getting married, and I was his hostess frequently when I was in school and then when I was out of school and I could get wherever he was at the time. And when I told him I was getting married he was stunned and then when he heard how much older Jim was and who Jim was. He said, “I can't imagine that you're doing this. Do you realize as you get older how much older he's going to be?” And I said, “Of course I do.” And it was almost as though he never forgave me for getting—although he performed the ceremony of course, but he was always very stiff and unforgiving to poor Jim. Because Jim was kind of “Hi Henry,” and it was Henry, “Oh come off of it.” So that kind of put a wall between us of his making. And I thought, “Well, it's your loss, not mine.” And again, it didn't bother me. I was sad, I'd hoped he'd get over it, he never did. But it was—it ate on him and I think this is part of his sickness now that he and particularly in his profession. But I don't know that. I'm not a psychiatrist. In this response, the teller reveals a few details important to the overall story. The first is her brother's unhappiness at her marriage. She uses the word “older” a few times in reference to Jim, and the phrase “who Jim was,” possibly referring to the friendship that Jim and his wife had with her family, although without a follow-up question or further clarification, it is uncertain. Overall, juxtaposed with her story of being close with her brother (Interview 1) and being happy is another story of a rift with her brother. As EtterLewis described in her interviews, there are many places where Constance edits herself, starts and stops, changes direction. Also important to keep in mind are the interviewer's field notes, which described Constance as having tears streaming down her face throughout the interview despite smiling.

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Interview 3 The interviewer began by asking Constance about her biggest accomplishments in the past five years. She responded: Getting through the death of my husband. Um, health, I've maintained good health, had both of my knees replaced, that all is part of health. Um, and maintained, not just retained, maintained a good equilibrium, happiness, closeness to family and friends, and little family [in reference to her two dogs]. I think they definitely would be my greatest accomplishments. Nothing really materialistic. She again brings up happiness and the closeness to family and friends. After Constance again stated that she has had a charmed life, the interviewer asked, “Do you have any objects in your house that are particularly important to you or especially significant?” She responded: Um, again not really. I have a lot of things that I really enjoy being around and having, but so many of the old family pieces that have been in the family for many generations I was able to get rid of very easily when we moved here. In fact, because I had someone helping me move, a professional helped me move, she said, “Constance, you're so easy to work with because you don't mind saying no, that's all right, we'll get rid of it, we'll get rid of it, we'll get rid of it.” Um, as much as I love things, I can get rid of them very easily. She says that the pieces that had belonged to her prominent family were easy to get rid of and later describes how she systematically shreds family photos so they don't end up in an antique store. For her, there seems to be a difference between photos and objects. Objects are neutral in that they aren't linked back to the person while photos are personal because they are identifiable. This seeming contradiction between importance of family and discarding family mementos points to another hidden story that could potentially have been revealed through more careful interviewing. This case presents a very brief example of how the stories of omission may affect the stories that are told. In Constance's case, her story of having a loving, important family is juxtaposed with the untold story of the end of that family through lack of children. Her brother, who became a celibate priest, seemed to resent his sister for marrying an older man and thereby forgoing a family herself. For Constance, the omission of details about her marriage or her husband, beyond stressing the idyllic marriage she had, suggests another story, although we cannot be sure exactly what that story is—only that its shadow exists in what was said. Discussion The point of looking at stories of omission is not to question the veracity of what the interview participant says but rather to try to see a bigger context. If, in the example of Constance, the interviewer stopped at her initial description of her brother as someone to whom she was very close, then the story of her brother's anger at her own lack of children would not have been told. This omission led to an important part of the story. The same can be said of the marriage. Although the purpose of

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looking at omissions is not to question the interviewee (e.g., Does her emphasis on having an idyllic marriage mean she did not?) but rather to think of her story as more complex than what she's presented. Since the purpose of the study was to understand the experiences of childless older women, it is certainly reasonable to expect that Constance wanted to present her story in a way that explained why she did not have children. Having married an older man placed her in a position of not wanting to start a family. Constance may have thought that the research interviewer had preconceived notions about women without children (e.g., they are unhappy or unfulfilled) and therefore may have been purposeful in challenging these assumptions. When talking about not have children, she suggests that this was left to chance. She does not bring her husband into this decision except to say that he left the choice up to her. It would have been helpful if the interviewer had pursued more questions about her husband to obtain a better understanding of how he fit into her life story. Considering how Constance's story unfolded by seeing what was initially hidden underscores an important consideration in narrative gerontology; namely, that stories (and lives) are complex and layered. By stopping at a surface plot or series of events, an interviewer misses the opportunity to uncover shadow stories and other omissions. Paying close attention to details revealed and potentially missing over the course of an interview can greatly inform a subsequent interview, which in turn can add to how the stories are ultimately understood by the researcher. This level of understanding obtained through listening also reflects a type of narrative care that is practiced in the interview situation. The interviewer, through active listening, works not to shape the story in his or her way, but rather to encourage the teller to bring in details that the teller may not have thought relevant. As mentioned earlier, power structures that exist in an interview situation can greatly influence what is revealed. Acknowledging story gaps or omissions and providing the teller with the opportunity to fill those gaps is an important way of leveling the power differential during the interview. This, in turn, opens story possibilities for the teller that can help the interviewer and teller reach an important new level in the joint construction of story and meaning. Acknowledgments We would like to thank the National Institute on Aging for funding this study (1-R01-AG03061-01A1) and the participants who so graciously shared their stories with us.

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"Shadow stories" in oral interviews: Narrative care through careful listening.

In most narrative approaches to understanding old age, the primary object of interest is the told story. However, what is often overlooked in narrativ...
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