Life in 200 Photos or Less

Our world wants to compact everything, boil it down, keep it simple.  140 characters, maybe 280 if Twitter so blesses you.  Disappearing videos, "stories" that only exist for 24 hours.  We focus on the immediate and the upcoming.  We rarely look back, and when we do, it's usually a Facebook slideshow of our most liked photos from the previous year.   I'm starting to think that this is a disservice to us.

Grandma and her big brother

Grandpa and Grandma

I've been thinking on this for a few months.  Earlier this year, my mom showed up at my front door with an armload of crumbling photo albums, the covers dusty and the pictures tidily arranged with black corner protectors and neatly written captions.  They were my grandma's, she explained, and Grandma had forgotten that they were even in her apartment.  They hadn't been looked at in awhile.  Mom thought it might be wise for me to start scanning them into my computer.  Right around this time, Grandma had made several trips to the hospital--she's 98--and we were beginning to wonder if she might quietly slip away one night.  "Maybe just start thinking about how we want to remember her," Mom asked.  And so I started looking at the pictures.  Studying them.  Imagining the conversations, the daily life behind the white-ink captions.

I made some interesting discoveries, like how each of my sisters and I eerily resemble my mom at various stages of her life.  I treasured the rare photos of my Grandma smiling widely, all her teeth showing, instead of the tight-lipped serious look she usually adopts for photos.  My heart ached a bit to see my grandfather healthier than I can remember him.  But more than that, I saw myself.  I saw my own life: childhood innocence, stiff adolescence, the bright light of young love, gripping grubby hands of small children, the quiet affection that grows through the years of marriage.  My life echoed the life of my grandmother in its simplicity and detail.  And I was forced to confront the discomfiting reality that this time that seems to stretch so long for me will one day also be summarized by a series of photos and videos.



I don't have any deep applications to make about "making the days count" or anything like that, just some thoughts that keep rolling around in the background.  I have been thinking about the way we view the elderly, the ways we minimize their experiences and the years and years of life they have behind them.  I have thought about the flexible nature of time, how long the days can seem and yet how quickly the years go by.  I am trying to be conscious of the reality that there are no guarantees of tomorrow, let alone sixty more years of life.  I feel a deeper humility about my place--my passing place--in this world, and overall, my insignificance.  This reality causes me to treasure my Christian beliefs even more, that in spite of the blip of history my life occupies, that even within that blip I am nominal and unnoticeable, I am treasured and loved and valued.  And this is true of all human life.  Which is why thinking on the brevity of life can, in fact, be joyful and not depressing. 

"You are still my valentine"

Grandma with Uncle Martin and Mom