Don’t Wait!!

Maybe it is because tomorrow is the fifth anniversary of losing Daddy or maybe it is because I have been combing through a box of family pictures that took a circuitous route to me, but I’m nostalgic today.

I love looking through the pictures and flipping them over to see Mother’s perfect handwriting with the funny looking r’s neatly noting who is in the picture or my Aunt Peg’s funny notes about someone looking good in this picture compared to how they look now since they’re getting fat! If they hadn’t made notes, I would have no one to ask now.

My mother-in-law never made notes on her pictures, but at 90 could pick up the picture of her eighth grade class and not only tell me everyone’s name but who they married, where they moved away to and what they became. It was a small class but impressive nonetheless. I grabbed a label maker and carefully recorded what she said for that and the other pictures in the box. Several albums full!

If you’re lucky enough to have living grandparents and parents, pull out their unlabelled pictures and start getting them in albums before there is no one to ask. If they’re gone, talk to aunts and uncles or cousins or even your siblings. We all remember things differently.

Don’t just ask about pictures. Listen to the stories you’ve heard a thousand times and instead of eye rolling, ask questions to find out more, to find out why. Talk to your kids and look at your treasure trove of memories. Are they ready to be explored by someone else?

I am thankful for listening to Daddy talking about his Army days or going to U of I as a sixteen year old farm boy. Thankfully, he took a lot of pictures that he marked too.

I’m thankful for Grandma’s watermelon rind pickles recipe, even though I’ve only done the work to make them once.

Make today the day you seek someone out to learn something about who you are or to share something about who they are. Don’t wait!!