Snapshots In Time Precious

A couple of weeks ago I was bitten by some bugs – rearrange the furniture bug, clear out the closet bug, get organized bug. So I sat down, made a list of what I wanted to do and materials needed and set to work.

I got some empty boxes and started in, sorting through my clothes. It wasn’t long before I had several boxes filled with clothing, that while in good shape, I no longer wanted.

As I neared the end of the project, I spotted a plastic container filled with pictures. Since I’d been at the sorting for quite a while, I decided to take a break and look through the pictures.

What had started out as a thought to take out a few minutes from what I was doing soon turned into several hours as I lifted one picture after another out of the container. Memory after memory surfaced. There was a picture of my oldest grandson on his first day of school. A photo of another grandchild’s second birthday brought a smile as I looked at him blowing out the candles on his cake.

I discovered an envelope filled with pictures my brother had given me several years ago. Photos of my dad with the three children we had at the time as well as my brother’s son and daughter, of my high school graduation, of the first time my dad and brother came to visit us, of my dad getting to fish in a mountain stream, of me and my brother when we were children. Then I found a picture of me and my oldest daughter on her first Easter Sunday. We both were dressed in pink.

A dozen or so pictures of a trip back to Iowa to see family and friends triggered memories of a side trip to Illinois to visit several high school classmates.

Pictures of past wedding anniversaries, birthday parties, our children with their grandparents, and family gatherings were soon spread out across the table. Photos of our sons and daughters leading their 4-H steers and giving their demonstrations were found.

Having gone through the agony of losing two houses and their contents to fire, the loss of all our photos has always weighed heavily on me. But because of thoughtful, caring, and generous people who had returned pictures we had given them, here I was -- looking at precious moments of when our children were little.

That’s when I decided I was going to see that the treasures I had found were not going to remain in a box in the closet but instead were going to be given to my children so that they would have photos of their youth. Perhaps, as they look at the pictures, they will recall when the photos were taken and tell their children about them, thus passing on family history.