Photographs and Memories

What a wonderful song by Jim Croce who left us much too soon in his life.  Here is why that song is on my mind today.

In my bedroom, under a window, sits a medium sized chest. The chest has the Union Jack on its outside. It looks very sixtiesish (I think I just made up a word!), like something from the British Invasion. I got the chest as a Christmas gift a few years ago. Immediately, I knew what I would fill this chest with. I filled it with photographs…and memories.

Every once in a while I open that chest and look back on my past. There are school pictures from elementary school. There are pictures of my dad and my siblings from when I was a kid. My high school class picture is in there (I had hair!). Pictures of my older two children, Amy and Andy, are abundant, As you know, if you read this blog regularly, I have been married more than once. My ex-wives show up consistently throughout the chest. There are pictures I took when I had a job where I got to travel the world.  There are many pictures of my youngest daughter, Emma. Interestingly there are fewer pictures of her because of the way we take pictures these days. That is also true of my grandson Jaxon. There are more photos of my granddaughter, Holly.

I think you get the point. Pictures! Pictures! Pictures! With no organization whatsoever. Just a large heap of photos…that represent my whole life. Maybe that is an analogy of my life! What do I do with these?  I tell myself I should organize them. Then I tell myself that that is way too overwhelming a task. How difficult it would be to decide which pictures to keep and which to toss! Do I keep pictures of ex-wives? They are a part of my history. Do I organize them chronologically or do I organize them by subject?  Do I risk the emotional upheaval of reviewing all of these pictures? Do I do nothing and let my kids do it after I am gone? That is a lot of questions and I have no answers!

You may have noticed that I did not mention any pictures of my mom being in that chest. There is one picture missing from the box and I do not know where it is and I have searched high and low. There was a 5 X 7 picture, in color, of six year old me and my mom and my dad. We were dressed in our finest as it was my sister’s wedding.  So, I have a box full of pictures but the one I want most, I cannot find.  That is an argument for organization, I guess!

I imagine a lot of you have this same problem. If you have any good advice, I would appreciate it. If only we had a Cloud back then!