pictures/memories

You are so right....

When my husband died suddenly, it was terrible. We'd been married for 38 years. I still miss him terribly.

I keep in my kitchen something that (I think) says it all about just about everyone who was loved dies.

Our loss is not in the life we had with him. Our loss is in the life we could have had with him.

We felt this was especially true of my late husband who was an exceptional human.

This reminds me of the late, great Jim Croce's song (circa 1972?) "Photographs & Memories". I LOVE THAT SONG! He was The Pride of Philly, a "new artist" with such a Promising Future, and a truly gifted musician, with his words and his songs....his life was snuffed out in a plane crash I was shocked and I truly mourned his passing (I cried for 2 days!) along with his family. I know I was VERY sad to lose him during his rising career, and we truly LOST a true "American Idol" on that day !

I do think that as we get older we get somewhat numb to it. When I was 19 and my brother died in Viet Nam I thought it was the end of the world. When I was 30 and my DH died I was an emotional wreck to the point of being unable to function for a long time. But as time goes on and more of these loses occur they don't seem to bring on such profound sadness anymore.

Photos are the most important (to me) keepsake, and I would forgo keeping most other 'things' in my life, to keep the family photo albums. I prefer them to any other storage media (computer, disk, USB) as I want to have access to them at any time, without needing any other device to see them. They preserve our past and heritage more than any other process, except for possibly the written word, and most people don't write down their family stories and heritage, but most do have pictures.

I spent two years organizing, labeling (with names dates, locations, events, relationships of the people) photos from 4 generations of my family. No one before me had done much with documenting the who, what, where, why, when of it all, and I'm so glad I did, because the people in their 80's and 90's who helped me identify those people and times before I came along are all gone now. Had I put it off any longer, much of the information would have been lost.

For years my DH had a album of someones wedding pictures. Looked to be from around 1940's from the hair and clothes. DH had no idea who the couple were. I asked all my living in laws who they were and no one knew. When we moved and cleared out stuff we decided to throw the album away as we had not a clue who it was or why DH's mom had it in with her pictures. I am still sad that we threw away pictures that someone probably would have treasured.

Well written post. Sometimes those pictures can help us remember.