A Picture is Worth A Thousand Words

We spend our whole life accumulating; houses, cars, clothes, jewelry, furniture. For our first move we rent a one room trailer or even the back of a pick up truck or two. When we are moving a family to get a bigger house, we rent a semi. At the end of our life, we spend our days giving away; clothes, jewelry, furniture. Many call it downsizing! Until one day, we are reduced to a one bedroom apartment, less than 1000 square feet.

Every time I spend an afternoon with my grandparents, I am reduced to tears, thinking about life in general. Our perspective is so skewed. We live hustling from here to there with every moment full of some activitiy. At the end of life, we may have outlived all of our friends and even some of our family members. Life is full of silence, remembering our life from the past. No longer are things of value to us. No longer are we the center of someone else's existence. We just sit remembering!

My grandma Mary doesn't remember my name or the names of my family. To her, when I walk in the room I am "Hi honey". She knows that I am her granddaughter, that I belong to her and are a part of her family. I bring her favorite veggie burger, a breath of fresh air from the food that is the same although it is quite decent. She tells me again and again how much food I have brought that it is too much. I sit and listen to countless stories that I have heard 100 times before. Sometimes we don't say much. I help them reorganize and throw empty boxes away or just sit and listen. Then we sit and look at old photo albums. A huge smile comes across my sweet grandma's face remembering times we spent as a family. She remembers the day she graduated, her wedding day, being with her sister, grandpa coming home from the army in WW2. She smiles at all of the holiday celebrations and reunions that we were together as a family.

All of these memories are like strings forming a tapestry, they are a patchwork of happy memories that once were and sad ones of how distance and events can create space among its members. Every family has a tapestry. How blessed you are if you have relationships with extended members not just your own immediate family. How blessed my kids have been that it has always been a priority for Paul and I to allow the kids to spend time with family outside of our own little world. Although not all family gatherings are fun or exciting, they still form the quiltwork of our life and who we are.

If you have a camera, do you document events with friends and family? Do you include yourself in the pictures? Do you have priorties to visit family members from time to time, regardless of distance, do you try to keep in contact with them? How do you view your family, are they a blessing or a curse?

When the person you love leaves this earth, sometimes the picture is all the physical evidence that remains! In the end, when our memory is gone, pictures still remain to help us remember what once was.