Fuzzy photos

My parents’ packrat tendencies must have been passed down to Sis and me for we simply cannot toss the detritus of their lives without carefully examining it for practical or sentimental value. That includes boxes and boxes of photographs.

The most intriguing photos are fuzzy with age (or is it our eyes?) – photos of Dad and his family at the beach, circa 1932, our none-too-svelte grandmother draped glamour-girl style on the hood of an old Ford, with approximately 10-year-old Dad standing solemnly to the side; photos of Mom’s mother and classmates from college, circa 1917; and photos of grandparents and unrecognizable aunts, uncles and cousins. What’s the fascination with pictures of people we never knew? I suppose I have some hope that as I piece together the family history, I’ll have faces to go with the names. Yet, most of the photographs are not labeled and, unless we connect with some long-lost cousin who can identify them, we may never know who they are.

There are also boxes and boxes of photos of Maggy, the miniature Schnauzer that dominated Mom and Dad’s life after we kids had left home. When I confessed that I had been jealous of Maggy, Sis said she felt the same way. When we’d invite Mom and Dad to come and visit us, Maggy was often their excuse for not traveling. As we looked at hundreds of Maggy photos – at the groomer, at the vet, posed on a fur rug, wearing a sweater, or fetching the newspaper – Sis or I would exclaim, “They never took pictures of us at the pediatrician or the hairdresser! They never posed us on a fur rug!”

But we don’t really begrudge the love Mom and Dad focused on their dear Maggy. It’s the same love and nurture that characterized their whole lives, including love for us kids and their many friends.

Sue