* “An epiphany is a sudden realization of a significant event. At that special moment, a life meaning becomes clear to you —an insight into your personality, a discovery of something you value or believe in, an acute sense of where you are in life.

Here’s an Epiphany Tale one elder told to her family:

I must have been around seven or eight. It was summer, and we were visiting my aunt Clara up at Crystal Lake. I was alone, lying on my back by the banks of the lake, looking up at the sky, and I had my harmonica in my mouth. I was just breathing through it, in and out, not playing a melody, simply breathing. And suddenly, I was overcome with this wonderful feeling of connection to everything in the world. I’d say now it was a spiritual feeling. I listened to the sound my breathing made through that harmonica, and I thought, I am part of the noise of the world. I am part of everything . . . I’ve had that feeling again, from time to time, throughout my life — a certainty that I am part of the universe —but that was my first time. I think that knowledge is one reason I’ve never found the idea of dying very frightening.”

Your turn: Write about an epiphany you or your fictional character has had.

* Excerpt: From Family Tales, Family Wisdom —  How to gather the stories of a lifetime and share them with your family, by Dr. Robert U. Akeret with Daniel Klein