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| My grandmother |
The text was written following a tragic divorce and came to me as I sorted through old photographs. Enjoy!
How happy we look smiling for the camera. How hopeful for the future as we pose here together, frozen for eternity in a fraction of a second and the flash of a camera. One click and an infinitesimal moment is recorded for posterity. Tomorrow’s pain and unfulfilled promises are unforeseen, unanticipated.
Photographs are given far more
importance than they deserve. We use them to document our lives; perhaps even
to define us. Then when relationships crumble and children move on into
adulthood with their own lives and preoccupations, the frozen images smile back
mocking the reality of what is now – what is today.
The life we once had -- was it
dream or illusion? Who are these people smiling at us now – these people caught
in a millisecond of time?
Photographs wear with age, their
brightness fades and their corners become tattered and yellowed; but the images
continue to smile at us as they did long ago when the shutter closed and
captured one shared smile, one shared space, and one microcosmic second in a
lifetime.
We have all changed since those
first pictures were taken. We are older, and perhaps wiser. Photographs provide
proof that we have lived, but they can never tell others who we really are.
Photographs are, after all, only superficial shards of the life we leave
behind.
Looking at old photographs always brings a happy but sad feeling all at the same time. Happy to see that I was having a wonderful time, dressed nicely and looking healthy next to people I cared about, whilst at the same moment thinking, What went wrong? Where are they now? Some of them have passed on. Why did I not make another decision? and the queries are endless. But that's life I suppose.
ReplyDeleteI love the old black/white pictures you showed. They had a real style of dress in those days. Everyone made an effort when it came to taking pictures.
Families stayed together in those days, come hell or high water. Were they happier? We'll never know. It is still sad to see the old wedding photos of a dissolved marriage. The cousins of a family now separated. Photographs record history, I guess; nothing more. They bring us joy -- they bring us regrets and sadness.
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