Skip to main content

Family Album



It sits on the very top shelf of the bookcase, gathering dust.  To get it down I have to climb on a chair though my knees are weak and I am not as limber as I once was. Black marker on a torn piece of masking tape stuck on its front cover says that it is mine, made for me by my mother twenty-odd years ago when I thought I had lost all my family albums.  
Remembrances of yesterdays –
1968- a black and white, 5 X 7, a family portrait taken the summer after I graduated from high school and was to start college and before my older brother got drafted and ended up in Vietnam. Seven of us smile back to someone or something stage right.  We were all younger, thinner, more naïve back then. If I could go back in time, what would I say to each of them?  Would they listen?
1973 – a faded 8 X 10 wedding picture done in some golden hue that was supposed to make everything look romantic.  It is one of the few I did not rip into pieces and throw into the fireplace.   The dreams and the promises of that day are as faded as the portrait. To regret that marriage and wish it had never happened would be to regret my three children.  To regret that fated relationship would be to regret the lessons learned.
1953 – a 3 X 5, black and white studio picture of a little sister smiling at her frowning brother.  She steals the show as he watches. Now that he is gone there is no way to make up for lost time and lost moments.  
1975 – a small Polaroid of three smiling women and a baby.  My mother holds my son in his baptismal outfit.  My grandmother and I stand beside her. The baby stares at the camera and the commotion, not realizing the importance of the four generations, not realizing that we live on through our children.
1992 – a color photo captures a young boy (ten or so) holding a Spurs jersey up to his chest.  Christmas wrappings lie everywhere.  A very young (and thin) me smiles at him.  It is obvious that I love him.
1957 – a black and white school photo, wallet size, of a little girl in a Catholic school uniform.  I smile into the camera, oblivious of the missing teeth and the terrible home perm my mother gave me. I don’t care.  Life for a second grader is nothing but great.  
1950 – a home photo, black and white, with a beautiful embroidered edge.  A six-month-old, barefoot baby girl in a pink sundress fights to stand. Nothing will keep her down. My handsome daddy, always the gentleman, offers his arm and I accept eagerly.  I cannot wait to get on with this life.  I cannot wait to live and learn and love.

Labels:

Comments

  1. Lea PhelpsJanuary 27, 2013 at 12:06 PM

    I can see each of these photos. You write on a canvass and you paint beautiful pictures with your words

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Finding My Muse

1)Because my muse has a wicked sense of humor and visits me at odd times and in inconvenient places, I have learned to record inspirations/ideas immediately before I forget them or they dissolve into nothing. I carry small notebooks, own a digital recorder, and have been known to text messages home. I will scribble on anything – old napkins I find in my glove compartment or old receipts. I even pop out of bed in the middle of the night to jot things on sticky pads. 2)Calendars are great places to find topics. I use important dates, seasons, and upcoming holidays to plan blog posts. I can also go back into my work calendar to refresh my memory about meetings, conferences, or books I have read that might be worth sharing with others.   3)I will sit with a good cup of coffee, pen and paper ready, and read the newspaper searching for topics, interesting characters, or modern trends.  News channels and other newsfeeds are just as good.   4)I love to read the TV and movie guides for titles and…
4 comments
Read more

The Girl Who Eats Canned Spinach

I went to a Catholic elementary school run by strict Belgian nuns, and we could not leave the cafeteria until we ate everything served on our food tray. Once a week, they served warmed, canned spinach with our meal. The spinach tasted nothing like the way my grandmother made it, but I ate it. I gulped it down in three or four bites and it amazed my table mates. I told them we ate it at home so I was used to the taste. Now, my real problem began the day I ate the spinach off my friends’ trays so we could go play outside. As soon as the nun monitoring the cafeteria turned her back, my friends ate something off my tray I didn’t want, and I ate their serving of spinach. I only did it for two of my table mates, but the word spread. On the next Spinach Day, kids followed me to my table.I was suddenly very popular, and as soon as the nun marched off to the other end of the cafeteria, my friends and an army of others who only knew me as The Girl Who Eats Spinach, begged me to take their servin…
2 comments
Read more

Facing My Fear of Guns

With the ownership of firearms comes responsibility, so I had asked HoneyBunch several times to teach me how to shoot and to help me get my License to Carry. I got my wish two weeks ago. HB and I signed up to take a LTC class. He bought me a gun, one similar to his, that would be the type we needed to show shooting proficiency, and for one whole week he tried to get me to become familiar with it, but I was hesitant. I read the booklet that came with the gun. I practiced loading and shooting it in what is called dry shooting (no bullets), and since the flyer said I would have to shoot thirty shots at different distances, I finally tried with it loaded. I was a nervous wreck. The class of twelve turned out to be close to forty people. We were of all ages, colors, and genders, and I was glad I wasn’t the only woman my age. The shooting test came first, and we were separated into two groups. Those who were proficient (or thought they were) would shoot first, and those who were novices wou…
Post a Comment
Read more