May 20, 2026

The Questions You'll Wish You Asked Your Parents

The Questions You'll Wish You Asked Your Parents
Season 1

She was standing in front of a hot dog cart in midtown Manhattan when an 18-wheeler knocked her off her feet — and knocked her onto a completely different life path.

In this episode, Michele and Liz sit down with writer, author, and personal historian Nora Isaacs — Michele's dear friend from college and the founder of Backstory, a company that helps people capture their family histories and life stories in books they can pass down to future generations. Nora's path has been anything but linear: from Columbia Journalism School to the New York magazine world, a hot dog cart accident, a $3,000 settlement that took her to San Francisco, the dot-com boom, Yoga Journal, a book about women in overdrive, and eventually the realization — after losing both of her parents — that the most important stories are the ones we almost never think to save.

Nora shares why storytelling isn't just sentimental — it's backed by research as a tool for resilience, health, and grounding families in shared values. She talks about what happens when you give someone permission to tell their story, why the process of creating a legacy book is often as transformative as the book itself, and the universal themes she keeps hearing no matter how different her clients' backgrounds are: family, belonging, love, and safety. She also opens up about singing at the bedsides of hospice patients, why gathering with women is one of the most restorative things you can do, and the one question she wishes she'd asked her own mother.

Whether you've been putting off recording your parents' stories or you're wondering what your own legacy will look like, this conversation will make you pick up the phone and call someone you love.

In This Episode You'll Learn:

  • Why Nora believes writing is the number one way to be your own therapist — and the morning practice she recommends to anyone feeling overwhelmed
  • How a hot dog cart accident in midtown Manhattan became the catalyst for a complete life pivot
  • What Backstory is and how it works — from the initial conversation to a finished legacy book, no technology required from the client
  • Why the process of telling your story is often as transformative as the final book itself
  • The research behind why family stories build resilience, improve health, and pass down values across generations — including the concept of "vicarious memories"
  • What the Threshold Choir is and how singing at the bedside of hospice patients and NICU babies has become one of Nora's most meaningful forms of service
  • Why you should start capturing your family's stories now — not later — and practical tips for doing it with just a notebook and your phone's voice memo app
  • The Stanford Letter Project: a free resource for writing a legacy letter to your loved ones
  • The one question Nora wishes she'd asked her mother — and why the details matter more than you think
  • Why Nora believes gathering with women is one of the most restorative and powerful things you can do at this stage of life

Resources From This Episode:

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If this conversation resonated with you:

  • Follow Spark Me wherever you listen to podcasts so you never miss a Spark Short
  • Share this episode with someone who's been meaning to sit down with a parent or grandparent and ask them their story
  • Leave a rating or review — it helps other women in their second act discover the show
  • Tag us when you're listening and tell us: What's one story from your family you're glad someone saved — or one you wish they had?