Narrative Inquiry and Reconstruction

How does one construct a true story out of fragments?  Arrive at the truth or some version of the truth with scant details that may themselves be fiction(s)?  

With no one to ask...in the face of a person, people unwilling to talk?

In the absence of witnesses?

Is truth even possible?

Do creative--yet informed imaginings--have any value?

{ The journey from Worms to Cologne 

is covered with stumbling stones. 

There's an archive in the ground. 

I have heard of a prison and have held 

the court document with his last known address 

for a house in front of his house. 

"Watching the long faces riding this run down track 

And the lost places from a dream that never brings them 

back"* 

I may never find my grandfather.   

The truth.  

Why my heart beats the way it does. }

*Linda Ronstadt, "The Blue Train"

"What if our memories, our dreams, and our secrets are all part of one story, living just underground, just beneath the surface, waiting to grow, like the aspens, into beautiful forests, gleaming with many golden leaves of story?  What if our secrets push themselves up into the light?  And what if...maybe...just maybe...a secret shouldn't be a secret any more?"  Poulos, Accidental Ethnography:  An Inquiry Into Family Secrecy, p. 42