What do old family snapshots really reveal?

Moving has meant weeks and months of de-cluttering and emptying closets full of every kind of object and bits and pieces of the past, stuffed in untidy and perilous heaps such that for years I could not even open three of the four closets upstairs. Also, that’s because I had so many books, boxes and furniture blocking the doors to those closets which I discovered held long-forgotten treasures.

Well, I have slogged my way into those former fortresses of memory, packed tight with the past, and have completely cleared them out. What I discovered was revelation upon revelation. These includes papers and meticulous law school class notes my father could not bear to toss out 65 years ago. Also I had to remove clothing and other items my mother could not part with, so they ended up in boxes in the closet. But the most precious find was hundreds of old family photos going back many decades. It is these photos that I am going to write about now, for in sorting and looking at every one of them, many of which I don’t believe I had ever seen before, I had intense memories fly before my eyes as if viewing a family home movie. We still have those also.

But the photos, classic snapshots from the 1950s through the 1980s are what made me stop and pause countless times to ponder my bonds and relationships with my parents and two siblings. The more photos I found the more emotional it became. There were a number of photos of my mother and me , along with my siblings from throughout those long-ago decades. I am always impressed by how stylish and elegant she was, even in the most casual snapshots. And that wondrous smile of hers that I see every day in photos from recent years, even in her last year when drmentia and diabetes had taken their terrible toll. No known illness could subdue that radiant smile, always so pure and natural.

There were pictures of my father with his arms around me and my brother when we were 6 and 3; my brother, sister and I in a number of snepshots from the late 50s; my brother, father and I fishing in a pond about five miles out in the country from my aunt’s place in the nearby small city of Sumter, SC, where my mother grew up; pictures of us at the beach during summer vacation; and photos of me and my parents and siblings with cousins, aunts and uncles when we all gathered in Sumter for Christmas. This was the only time I ever saw my cousins. There were also several photos with my grandparents in them, some of them holding me when I was a baby. I was their first of only two grandsons. I became especially close to my maternal grandmother, but sadly she passed away when I was only 14 in 1965.

I had a lifelong difficult and at times emotionally abusive relationship with my father, a perfectionist I could never please or meet his expectations for who I should be and how I should have turned out. So he basically wrote me off and concentrated on trying to mold my brother into his idealized image of the perfect son.

Thus it’s particularly poignant to see the photos of he and I when I was a small child. He looked so proud of me and happy. Then starting in my early teen years, and continuing into high school, I didn’t seem so happy in photos from that period. I looked serious or slightly melancholy in a number of them. Then I came across a picture of me and my father and brother on the sofa in our living room where I was caught in a fit of laughter as my father and I broke up looking at some “Herman” cartoons, probably in the late 70s, but I can’t be sure. I had forgotten all about “Herman.” It was the “Drabble” strip that seemed to be about our family, and Dad and I had many laughs showing each other selected strips from that uncannily close-to-home comic. When I think of Drabble and look at those pictures of me and my father when I was growing up in the 50s, I feel a sense of remorse for how I’ve thought of him over the years, and I find a softer place of compassion and understanding in my heart and mind, almost 30 years after his passing.

I’ve taken several hundred of these old photos, photographed them with my iPhone camera, and created a series of eight 7×7 hardcover “Family Album” books, with favorite snapshots on the cover of each. This will ensure those priceless old snapshots don’t fade and wash out sitting in albums and boxes. Thus, I’m proud to say I’ve created a permanent series of printed books as a lefacy for future generations. My guess is these books won’t last too long, as our extended family is so small. Neither my brother nor I have kids, so it’s up to my only niece and nephew to preserve these books. Frankly, I created them mostly for me and my siblings. None of the photos are identified, so it’s unlikely they will mean much to future generstions of descendents of my sister. But it’s something I had to do. And it brought back so many memories. Despite a very painful adolescence during long stretches of my teenage years, I want to preserve the good memories, including how very close I was to my aunt and grandparents.

It seems like the older I get the more I live in memories, not the “past,” however. The past is past. But good times survive in those old photos. I don’t recall nearly as much as I thought I would about my last job before retirement, where I worked for 22 years. And I have very few photos of myself from those years. That lack of photos may be one reason for my lack of memories. It’s very puzzling to me. However, I do remember a lot more about my previous jobs and the experiences of life that molded me into the person I am today.

An extreme creature of habit, this big move out of the family home, which has been taking place very gradually over months, marks a seismic shift in my once comfortable and familiar daily routines. It’s all been very unsettling and hugely disruptive to my life in retirement, not something I wanted at all.

But it’s going to happen, and all these old photos ground me in what is now a long past spanning seven decades, difficult as that is to comprehend.

My mother, brother and I in 1955

Two photos of me when I was in high school (how time flies):

https://flic.kr/p/2mYs6s2

https://flic.kr/p/2mYWTqV