A photograph freezes an image for all time, so that we might remember what was and is no more. It also allows us to view that same moment from a different vantage point.
A few days ago I went through six boxes of photographs, which covered several decades of my life. Yes, they were in boxes. I would love to tell you that I am my mother who put all of the photos immediately into albums and labeled them all! She had that nailed. But no, her daughter (at least this daughter) has them scattered all over the place. I started out doing that… I have five beautiful albums that cover my high school college years and maybe five years of marriage and family. After that… it’s total chaos. I’m blessed to have been able to get the rest into boxes.
As I went through these six boxes of photos and looked at my life, I found myself wondering what happened to all of that living. We went from one year to another and life just happened. “Oh there I am in college.” and “Look… me married, and then “me pregnant or at a graduation.”
I couldn’t help noticing the expressions on our faces. The candid ones were the best. Take for example, the picture of my sister and me in the kitchen cooking with our mother. I bet I’ve looked at that picture hundreds of times. But the other day, when I looked at it, I saw the love in my mother’s face for the first time. It made me miss her because now, she is gone and I can’t ever get that face again except in photographs. But thank heaven for that, yes?
There were lots of pictures of me with my sis. You know? Honestly? We were so close when we were little and growing up. After my brother got his own room, it was my sister and I until I moved out to go to college. She use to make me crazy (five years younger… what would you expect?), and she use to make me laugh till I couldn’t breathe.
Once just after our bedtime, we got to laughing for no reason at all… just laughing… We couldn’t stop… everything we said was funny. Just breathing was funny. The noise in the next room was funny. Pick anything… we thought it was something to laugh about. (Did you ever have a day when you just needed to let off steam? Well I think that’s what we were doing.) We kept up that laughing for maybe fifteen or twenty minutes. Our dad would say from the front room, “You two need to knock it off and go to sleep.” We would stuff our faces into our pillows and laugh at Dad trying to get us to stop. Then our mother got to laughing at our dad’s efforts to shut us up, and that did it. His dignity was at stake… he came roaring into our bedroom and ordered us to turn away and not to look at each other for the rest of the night. We still laughed.
I have no photo of this moment in time other than in my heart and soul. And the difference between this photo and the ones I viewed the other day? When I see myself and family in actual photographs I am aware of time passing. But the photos in my heart and soul? They make me feel like a kid again.
So which is better? I don’t know… I suppose that each have their place in our lives. I would not want to throw out the photo boxes. But the ones in my heart take up a whole lot less space, they make me feel good, and I can carry them everywhere!
May your photos, both real and in your heart, fill your life with love.
Best…. Carolyn Thomas Temple