As most of you know, I’ve been busy the last couple of weeks scanning old family photos, documents, and assorted ephemera onto an external hard drive. As I do this, I file each picture into a folder for the main subject…mostly by family. I started out with noble intentions…scanning each photo individually and labeling it with the names of the subjects. Then it got filed in the appropriate folder. I have three big plastic tubs of pictures. I quickly realized I’ll still be sitting here in 2016 if I kept things going at that rate. So I started grouping 3, 6, 9 or more photos with the same people on one scanned document. I am saving them to the appropriate folder and I can go back at my leisure to label them. The originals are being divided in piles and will be sent to the people in the pictures. I am on my last box. This is a project that has been hanging over my head for at least the eleven years since my mom died. I’ll be happy to have it done and behind me, but slogging through it isn’t easy. You see, as it turns out, Memory Lane has a lot of potholes.
The majority of photos I scanned on Mom’s Angelversary were of her…in her prime. A young mother. The young me grasping her hand, hanging onto her leg. It tugged at my heart. The next day I went through much of my older daughter’s childhood. Sweet baby pictures of her in my arms, this now 40 year old…sucking on a bottle, peeking from under her blanket as she woke from a nap, hiding behind her little hands when she became camera shy at two. It tugged at my heart. Yesterday, I lifted some papers and a small enclosure card fluttered to the floor. “Happy Valentine’s Day, my love!” Then came a birthday card. “I adore you!” I don’t know that I was ready for this. Then again…I don’t know that I ever WILL be ready for this. I probably would not be doing it now if my hand weren’t being forced. I must get this done now. I really cannot cart this stuff with me, I cannot throw it away, and once the photos are disbursed, that’s it. This is my only chance to do this job. And it is not easy. I have to pace myself. I have to withdraw a little from people so I can work through another layer of grief. I have to ask God to hold my hand…a LOT!
I recognize how blessed I am. My marriage will always be perfect. There will never be fights, hurt feelings, divorce. My memories of my marriage will forever be sweet, happy, full of love and light. That is such a gift.
This sadness shall pass. This layer will be ripped open, cleaned out, and repaired. Just as all potholes are. And someday, I can drive down this road without falling in.
❤
“The widow who is really in need and left all alone puts her hope in God and continues night and day to pray and to ask God for help.”
1 Timothy 5:5