I’ve mentioned here on my blog that I have been working off and on over the past few months on my family photos. I had 200 or so slides converted to digital at Costco and I just finished editing those and uploading all of them plus some scanned paper photos onto flickr. I sent out an email to my siblings and parents with a link to the pictures, and that first night emails and phone calls were flying around between us. “who was that in the one…” , “I remember that trip, but ….”, and “did you see the look on Grandpa’s face in the one…”
At the end of these conversations my Dad sent me an email, “just mailed you the other box of slides and pictures we found; it weighed 10lb, 11oz.” WOW! So, I guess I’ll be busy for a while longer. I don’t mind though. See, I’m not just looking at the photos, I’m editing, restoring, enhancing color, deciding what story they tell, and which details need to stay in each photo. By the time they are on Flickr and everyone else is seeing them, I have them memorized, have studied the faces and the places, and have invited the memories in, and in the process, the pictures change me.
Since starting this draft, I have received the box of photos and slides, have acquired a scanner from my father-in-law, and have scanned and edited 30 or so more pictures. Many of these slides were my Grandparents’ on my mother’s side, and many I have never seen before. I have not had any photos of myself before about age 2, and in this treasure trove of pictures I found this:
I know it’s me, because the slide has an imprint dated August 1962. And that is my Grandma Jo holding me. So now I know what I looked like when I was a fairly new baby. Sometime that summer of 1962.
This one was from that fall or winter, and I’ve never seen it. And when I first held it up to the light bulb the day the box arrived, I almost cried. I’ve wished so many times for a picture of myself as a baby with my mother. This gem was like a gift handed to me when I least expected it.
Sometimes I wish there was a recording device to go with every photo, so I could hear our voices, and hear the stories behind the pictures. One thing that I know, even without a recording, or hearing the tales, is that we were very happy children. We are smiling and laughing, and playing, throughout the years of photos, and I’m very very thankful that our Mom and Dad provided us a home where we knew we were loved and we were allowed to be children, and I’m thankful we have these photos as a reminder.
