July 1982 Our last family photograph. Mom and Dad came to California for a visit. Dad died three years later.
I don’t think about Mom like I did last year at all anymore. Unexpected perspectives are now inviting new definitions. I recognize this as Closure and it feels like I’m finding my roots. For some reason I believed I had missed the closure part of my transition and I knew it was an important part of the process. It seemed like I had given it enough time to show up— seal things up. I wanted to experience it but I had to wait for it to come in its own time. I couldn’t write the script for the unknown. I couldn’t “stage” it.
Something changed when Guy and I went to Wellington to bury Mom’s ashes and I am in a new place. Closure finally came and has turned yet another page for me.
Now I find myself rewinding the story of my life and I have new perspectives to consider. I look at photographs with new eyes. At times it feels like I’m watching reruns and have been given a chance to see what I missed or forgot about. Until now I’ve just had one version of “What happened in my life” and there has always been only one story. It’s the same story I’ve been telling myself my whole life. Now I can push Replay and see more to the story.
Thanksgiving – the 1960’s One of my favorite family traditions remains to be Thanksgiving. It was the same every year for so many years. When I look at these photos I realize they are probably taken from four different Thanksgiving dinners and they look pretty much the same. But, it’s shocking to see Dad wearing a suit and tie. That photo is from 1963 and had forgotten we still got dressed up for dinner.
It’s also clearer to me now why I have not been able to look at photos of Mom since she died. “That last year” was really the worst part of everything that ever was. I couldn’t find access to the Big Picture. Most of the things that had happened in the last seventy years were blocked. That last part is what I was left with and there just wasn’t a place for Me and Mom to be and I couldn’t get myself out of it. It was over and I didn’t have the code to log back in to the beginning. I didn’t know where or how to put Mom in a new context. I needed closure.
Now I have a whole lifetime — a family. As I shuffle through this lifetime I can put myself in each photograph and I stay with it longer. Finding things I missed or have forgotten about. And, those unforgettable things I still cherish and just want to polish. This is a better version of Memory Lane.