summer sorting

It always seems like the long days of summer are perfect for sorting photographs. I can make messy piles on every surface and no one cares. And if someone stops by, they want to see...themselves!

That was enlightening a year ago when I was meticulously putting pictures in notebooks by year, documenting all that has gone in since bob and I married in 2001. Annuals... That's how I lived it! (And it is helpful to have annual pictures on the wall so I can remember what year we got the cat, when the baby was born, etc.)

Which always jogs the fact that faced with this task when my folks were alive, they opted to dump them all in garbage bags and put them on the curb rather than go through the motions of sorting. I know they thought they were relieving us of the burden, but..... Here is one of the very few we have managed to collect.

SO in thinking about a time the children will have to sort all this.....I realized what they all want are pictures of themselves! Siblings and cousins are nice, but even the "that is soooo embarrassing!" picture become treasures - after enough years. And I plan to live long enough to have those years!

So I reorganized the boxes of loose photos by person. (Have not yet broken up the books...) Then as each child visits we can get out his/her box (and his/her mother's just for fun) and remember.

Now totally digitalized, I guess my next task is a thumb drive of each one. Maybe this summer...or next.

 

Remembering

About 20 minutes after my father died, I thought of a question I wanted to ask him. Not a deep life engaging question - just the location of a motel on Sanibel Island. But he was the last person who could have answered it and suddenly...he couldn't.

Once in a while the children will ask to hear stories in my past and I think "How boring! The grandchildren are so much more interesting!" I struggle to drudge up interesting events - like living through the Vietnam era or having a bomb shelter in the cold war. Like knowing how to use correction tape (or whiteout) or roller skate keys.

Now I wonder if pictures are more useful for starting discussion. Through an unfortunate set of circumstances, all my baby and childhood pictures are gone. But the internet is full of pictures of hand held egg beaters and creamed chip beef on toast. Here are some ways I thought to share memories without being BORNING!

Send pictures of something I used with explanation
Send pictures of their parents and uncles at the ages the grandchildren are now
Scan and send report cards and drawings from their parents
Collect generation pictures - my grandmother, my mother and me all at 50
Collect family pictures of Christmas or July 4 past
Typical clothing for each decade I have been alive




And remember that some things  - like kindness and faith in God and compassion and love NEVER EVER go out of style!