2008 Woodie Awards
Lessons to be learned From Family Photo Box
Tom Purcell: Associated Press
Issue date: 4/3/08 Section: Opinion
Here's something you should do if you haven't done so in a while: visit your mother and father and get out the old photo box.
Surely you have one. Ours is in my parents' hall closet. It's in a sturdy old Pabst Blue Ribbon beer case.
As my mother and I dug through the box, I came across a black-and-white photo of a little girl. She's holding a stuffed toy as she looks, suspiciously, into the lens of the camera.
That photo was taken 69 years ago, when the girl had her whole life before her. She didn't know yet that her father would die at 49 just a month before her wedding, or that she'd have six healthy children and 17 grandchildren.
That was my mother's picture, taken when she was 2.
I found my father's black-and-white high-school graduation photo. The photo had red coloring around his lips. When I asked my mother what it was, she explained.
When he was away in the Army, she used to kiss the photo. The red coloring was her lipstick.
My parents' wedding photos are striking. She was 19 and he was 23. They had very little money, but it was 1956, a time of hope and optimism.
The old Polaroids documented so many instances in their lives: the new home built in 1964 and Jingles, our beloved dog born in 1972, getting a bath, which she hated.
The newer photos document the thinning and graying hair, the high school and college graduations, the surprise party we threw for my father when he turned 50 and, eventually, the surprise retirement party.
These photos transport me right back to those moments I knew as a kid, both sad and happy: the cold January day in 1972 when my grandmother died and my father sobbed and the Friday evenings sitting around the dinner table laughing with my sisters.
It's bittersweet to go through the old photos. They make me sad. They reflect the speed with which time is aging us all.
But those photos fill me with calm. They make me remember how blessed I have been to be given the family I was given.
They bring perspective and clarity and help remind me that every day is precious.
Our fast-paced world is in desperate need of such perspective. As our markets crash and our politics get ugly -- as the media report every day on the various ways the sky is falling -- we need to stand above the fray.
If you're lucky enough to still have your parents in your life, go to their house and get out the old photo box.
Surely you have one. Ours is in my parents' hall closet. It's in a sturdy old Pabst Blue Ribbon beer case.
As my mother and I dug through the box, I came across a black-and-white photo of a little girl. She's holding a stuffed toy as she looks, suspiciously, into the lens of the camera.
That photo was taken 69 years ago, when the girl had her whole life before her. She didn't know yet that her father would die at 49 just a month before her wedding, or that she'd have six healthy children and 17 grandchildren.
That was my mother's picture, taken when she was 2.
I found my father's black-and-white high-school graduation photo. The photo had red coloring around his lips. When I asked my mother what it was, she explained.
When he was away in the Army, she used to kiss the photo. The red coloring was her lipstick.
My parents' wedding photos are striking. She was 19 and he was 23. They had very little money, but it was 1956, a time of hope and optimism.
The old Polaroids documented so many instances in their lives: the new home built in 1964 and Jingles, our beloved dog born in 1972, getting a bath, which she hated.
The newer photos document the thinning and graying hair, the high school and college graduations, the surprise party we threw for my father when he turned 50 and, eventually, the surprise retirement party.
These photos transport me right back to those moments I knew as a kid, both sad and happy: the cold January day in 1972 when my grandmother died and my father sobbed and the Friday evenings sitting around the dinner table laughing with my sisters.
It's bittersweet to go through the old photos. They make me sad. They reflect the speed with which time is aging us all.
But those photos fill me with calm. They make me remember how blessed I have been to be given the family I was given.
They bring perspective and clarity and help remind me that every day is precious.
Our fast-paced world is in desperate need of such perspective. As our markets crash and our politics get ugly -- as the media report every day on the various ways the sky is falling -- we need to stand above the fray.
If you're lucky enough to still have your parents in your life, go to their house and get out the old photo box.
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