| Prayers and Polaroids |
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My childhood was primarily, and irregularly, documented with my Dad’s Polaroid camera. As we moved from place to place, our small trove of dog-eared photos shrank, thanks to our clever filing system of throwing them all in dresser drawers (most of them are still probably stuck to the inside of a United Van Lines truck somewhere). Last week, I took a 2-day break away after Christmas to spend time with my sister, Carolyn, who has recently moved to the Delaware shore. One evening, as we sat up talking, she brought out a large box. “Whenever I could find these, I tucked them away so they would be safe,” she said. When she opened it, she reopened our childhood. There they were, the old photos: my First Communion Day; my late sister, Maureen, at age 3, looking exasperated as she opened her ice cream cup to find chocolate, not her beloved vanilla; all three of us small girls at Normandy Beach, New Jersey; my Nana Cunningham playing the grand piano in her New York City living room. Though none of these pictures would ever win a photography prize, their power floored me. Looking at them, I was 7 again, enduring the scratchy Communion veil, afraid of choking on the big dry Eucharist. There was fussy little Mo (besides vanilla ice cream, there wasn’t much she would eat in those days). I could smell the clean salt air, so different from the noxious fumes of Manhattan, hear the sweet sounds of Strauss and Chopin as Nana’s fingers flew over the keys…the torn, faded, black and white photos unlocked a world again for me. Together, Carolyn and I are going to make a scrapbook this winter, as a gift for ourselves and, someday, for my own children. It only takes a few photos to bring back a day, a season, a whole stage of life. But those special few are treasures indeed. This chilly February, I invite you to revisit the long-ago and faraway lands of your old photographs. If you are a tidy saver, open the album pages and share some stories with folks you love. If you’re like my family, open that dresser drawer and pull out the photos. Treat yourself to a scrapbook, and write your story in pictures. Arrange in the pages the images of your nearest and dearest faces; and the faces you miss the most. Keep them where you can look at them often. When you look at them, pray for them. As I sit at my desk at church, I love to look at the pictures of my church family, arranged on bulletin boards. I see the 7th graders making sandcastles on the beach. The beaming confirmation class stands together on their special day. High schoolers pause to pose on their Appalachian trail hike; a Service Saturday crew smiles from a West Philadelphia schoolyard. Soon, the kids will help make a scrapbook. Let’s treasure the memories of our times together, and when we look at the familiar faces, let’s hold each other forever in our prayers. Happy Valentine’s Day! |
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