(cross posted onto savingallmybestlines.blogspot.com)
It might seem sort of a downer thing to bring up during this Christmas season, but we are all just one broken heartbeat away from losing the stories of our lives. The people we love – especially parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins – are just one broken heartbeat away.
Friends often say to me, “I wish we’d had stories from our parents. You’re lucky to have so many of your Mom’s.” Just the other day, a friend mentioned my passion for sharing Mom’s stories.
It’s not a passion for sharing Mom's stories, but for nudging others into have their olders do the same.
We are our stories.
Yet how many of us know much about our parents before the years we started being consciously aware of them?
It's a joy whenever a friend posts snapshots of her Mom & Dad & their friends enjoying good times together, back when they were very young adults. I look at their older selves at church or other places and see the vibrant young woman, the dashing young man, in their smiles, their eyes. And so many of the photos are at spots where their children & grandchildren & even greatgrands have similar grand times!
Their daughter isn’t telling their stories in words, like I did with Mom, but in photos. Clear evidence that pictures really do speak a thousand years!
Albums
We are only one broken heartbeat away from throwing out albums of uncaptioned pictures, like I did with a haunting one full of pictures from the late 1800s & early 20th century, photos of my father’s beloved aunts & uncles at their summer place on a unknown river in an unknown place - there wasn't so much as a single caption under any of them. Will always remember the zest, the pure pleasure of being with each other. But without the captions, they were strangers to me, in a strange but wonderful land.
Are your family album photos clearly captioned? Not just on the page. Unless it’s actually glued onto the pages, as Dad’s family album was, each photo should also be captioned on the back. Photos sometimes fall or are taken out of albums. If it only has a page caption, it’s history is gone.
Christmas Heritage
It is my pleasure & great honor to work with some fabulous grannie clients. Some of them have A LOT of grandchildren, so buying Christmas presents can take a big bite out of their funds. A wonderful present to give adult grands is a photo of the olders back when they were youngers. I don’t have children, hence no grandkids, but aunts & uncles can give photos of their parents, brothers or sisters. Captioned on the back! Reprints are easy to get these days, even at the corner Walgreens or CVS. Team it up with a mat from the arts & crafts store, and you’re good to go!
Captioning suggestion – I write captions on white labels, then affix them to the back of the photo. That way, I don’t have to work about a ball point pen leaving an indentation on the precious photo or ink bleeding through.
Passion for Sharing
We are all just one broken heartbeat away from losing all our stories. I am passionate about sharing the joys of gathering them. Each of us is an walking album of stories – this holiday season is a wonderful time to help olders open up & share them with you, to haul out family albums & remember the stories, the people behind each photo.
Just one….
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