The stories are the first things to go… the boxes of images from countless trips and who knows where else are all that is left. It has been almost two years since my mom passed and when we dismantled her house all I had time for was to put all of her images in boxes to go through them later. I have finally found the energy to go through some these boxes and while some images are obvious keepers there are, literally, rolls and rolls of images from places I know not and of people that they once knew. Without the story….. they are worthless to me.
I think this really points a finger at how important the story is. Without mom putting these images into some context, album or journal, there is no way for me to relate to them….. history lost…. life experience lost. Elise has created scrapbooks of our kids and our family, and no doubt, they were a lot of work. She has created something tangible, something lasting, of our family which is in a form that can be passed from person to person and understood without me having to be there. I have seen the reaction of the kids when they look through these albums – they have tremendous fun and take pride that they are important enough to be written about.
The new digital age is leaving us with an even more frightening hole – images left on broken hard drives or on lost cell phones to rot and never be seen. You know where they were taken, you know who is in them, you know the significance. Take the next step and share the story with the images and you will create a powerful history that is interesting for the future..
