I had to clean out my parents house rather quickly after my father’s death to move Mom cross country to live with me.  It was not a pretty pack job in the few days I could manage off work.  In the midst of everything, I quickly threw every family photograph I could get my hands on into five medium sized moving boxes.  They have been sitting in the corner of Mom’s room every since.

Following my hospital scare last week, I have been feeling a lot of nostalgia.  In less than two years, my father died, my only sister’s health has been rocky and Mom was diagnosed with dementia and then scared me with a trip to the ER last week.  It’s been a tough couple of years and I am all too aware that the road ahead only gets harder.

So in thinking of all of this, it felt like the perfect time to bust out those boxes of photos from happier times.  Mom and I sat in her room for a couple of hours this evening passing cute pictures back and forth.  Sometimes she connected the cute baby or little girl with me and sometimes not.  A couple of times she asked if I had met various family members that I have known all my life.  But mostly it was lovely.  I pulled out Mom’s high school photo that I had never seen before– it was actually stunning.  There were a couple of photos from my parents’ early marriage in full 70s style.  And there were various cute ones of my father holding me as a baby or young kid that I particularly cherish now.

Just the other weekend I spent some time with a good friend who has a 6 month old baby.  I took a ton of photos of mom and baby to make sure to have some great ones for her.  And for her baby boy for when he grows up and one day finds himself looking through old photos for signs of joy and laughter.  It means the world to me now that there is so much of both to be found in these boxes!