May 16, 2010

I wish they had invented point & shoot cameras back in the 50s.  I've spent today scanning in old pictures from my grandmother, and let's just say it's a good thing neither my grandmother nor grandfather quit their day jobs.  Heads cut off, or even almost whole bodies, often blurry or dark, the pictures are even sometimes hard to make out.  (Sorry Grammy!) Still, they tell a story of a whole life time.

I assume we take pictures of what we love.  In the hundreds and hundreds of pictures that I've scanned this weekend, spanning 85 years, maybe a handful of them don't have people in them.  Very few landscapes or gardens, a handful of houses or cars (and even then - it was when my dad or Bob had a new house or car), and then of course a bunch of Sam (their cat) in the early 70s.  But then there is every birth, every wedding, every graduation, every Christmas.  There is grampa holding his mother's purse at his niece's (confirmation?) as a nun.  Grampa with Bob & dad, Grammy with Bob & dad (apparently no one else to take the picture). Grampa with Grammy, and Grandpa, and Grammy.  More so as they got older - more so after Bob and dad were out of the house.  More relaxed, more smiles.  Each with Sam of course.  But it was these pictures of each of them alone, taken by the other, where I really realized how much they loved each other.

Grampa often had a scowl on his face in the 40s, and alternated between a scowl and a tired look in the 50s and 60s.  He smiled when he held a baby, he looked proud around his kids, protective around his mother, but that was about it.  But in the early 70s I saw the smile come and relax his face.  I could see not only in his eyes but through his eyes that he loved Grammy, that he loved his kids, and starting in 74, that they both loved all of us.  

Grammy looked happier too than she had in years - especially when she was teasing Sam with a knitting needle or cuddling him on the couch.  And then I'm assuming the photo onslaught that began in 1974 and peaked in 1976 but stayed high through the 80s was not due to some decrease in the price of film and processing but rather that there is nothing you can love more than your grandchildren, especially when they are babies and toddlers.  Or at least that's what I read into the pictures.

I feel like I have lived a lifetime today, but unlike a real lifetime, I have lived only the joy, only the happiness.  My heart is full - and I haven't even scanned in the 80s yet! But then, I know the 80s will make my Grampa age and sicken, and eventually the frequency of pictures will trail off again towards the end of the 80s until there are very few in the 90s at all until Timothy is born.  So I think today I will stop here and just be happy.