Photographs.

I just spent the morning taking apart a photo album. It was an album I made of my wedding day to Timothy. Someone had bought a beautiful Wedding Journal/Album and and one summer I spent a lot of time carefully cutting the pages out and replacing them in a scrapbook with acid free plastic sheet covers. I used the pages from the bought album because they had beautiful words and verses on them, that really shared what I felt about the wedding and the marriage. I also added my thoughts and feelings about the wedding and the honeymoon. It was a beautiful thing.
Anyhoo........ this morning I just felt it was time to take the album apart. It was an interesting, cathartic experience. I took each page out of its plastic cover, read what was written and looked carefully at the photograph. And I was overjoyed to find that I was not weeping, I was not sad, I was not devastated. I remembered with fondness what a beautiful day my wedding was.

It was a gorgeous South African summer day in February. We had the wedding at South Africa's only "theme park" - Gold Reef City, a replica of a mining village from the Victorian era. The marriage was performed in a small chapel with a steep pitched roof and stained glass windows, which just held our 60 or so guests. The reception was held across the street at the Gold Reef City hotel, where we had a wedding lunch.

The overwhelming feeling was one of joy. I felt beautiful that day, loved and desired and content. The wedding ceremony was sweet, with my boys giving me away, and standing up front with us during the ceremony. We were all so happy.

As I looked over the photographs this morning, that is the feeling that came to me. I reveled in the memories of that beautiful day and the magical honeymoon that followed. The photos allowed me a glimpse into a happy past, and the glimpse warmed my heart.

I felt a feeling of gratitude for that experience and all that followed. Isn't that what photos are supposed to do? Allow us a glimpse into what was, and a sigh for what might have been and a thank you for what it meant.

"All photographs are there to remind us of what we forget. In this - as in other ways - they are the opposite of paintings. Paintings record what the painter remembers. Because each one of us forgets different things, a photo more than a painting may change its meaning according to who is looking at it."

Not only did the photos remind me of a joyful time, I also found some beautiful pictures of family who are no longer here. The pictures are beautiful, because we all look our best at weddings, don't we? My dearest Mom, with her hair "coiffered" and her smile wide on her lovely face. I miss her so much. Dear Granpa Jimmy, with his happy face, all spiffied up in a suit. I remember him always answering "marvelous!!!" whenever you asked him how he was.

Beautiful pictures of Greg and Matt, at age 12 and 6, looking handsome in their white shirts and long pants. They are both men, now, with their own lives and challenges, but then they were still my sweet boys, with their futures ahead of them. Then, I was still so much a part of their lives, still made decisions for them, still kept them safe from harm. Now, they have their own lives, with their own pictures.




A photo album is a wonderful thing. It is a memorial to the significant events in our lives and it is an affirmation that exciting things happen; and that even when they don't, the most mundane are worth capturing. It is, for the future generations that look at the photographs, a tantalizing glimpse into how their parents or family members used to live and a vision of what was important enough to them to capture on film.

"Keep some souvenirs of your past, or how will you ever prove it wasn't all a dream?"

So as I dismantled the album, (with much less pain than the marriage was dismantled (oh, the irony)), I felt gratitude for the many experiences, especially the joyful ones, that I have had in my life. It doesn't matter (I can say that now, because I have worked through the pain) that that beautiful bright beginning had a bad ending, because for a while there, all was bright and beautiful. It is those bright and beautiful moments from the past that motivate us out of the present and into a hopeful future. So much good came from that happy day; my beautiful son Travis, my life in America, a college degree, a job that I absolutely love, a spiritual journey that has given me some of the greatest joy I have ever known, and the advent into my life of some extraordinary and very special people. That day also began a journey of learning, many painful lessons that I wished I did not have to learn, but many lessons that have helped me become the person I am today.

That is also why we love looking at photo albums that belong to people we know and love. It is a glimpse into their lives, into their joys and into the significant events that they experience. From their photos, we can vicariously enjoy and share their experiences. We can love whom they love, we can see what they saw, we can wear what they wore, ate what they ate, we can feel what they feel.

I took one of the plastic covers and put the title page of the album inside. Behind it, I put the pictures I wanted to keep, the pictures that show that experience, pictures of the love and the joy and the sunshine of that day, pictures of the people that mean so much. That I will keep. The rest of the album I will discard, shred, throw away, with all the bad memories of the struggles that followed, the sad ending to that bright beginning. In the plastic cover will be love and joy and gratitude for the experience, and the pictures.

"A person is neither whole nor healthy without the memories of photo albums. They are the storybook of our lives. They provide a nostalgic escape from the often difficult days of the present."