Photo Album Connections

The Photo Album Connections

A photo album is more than a book that peers into the past. It’s more than pictures of events and people, more than the number of pictures times a thousand words. It’s a very useful bonding tool when done communally.

Album pictures testify to fun activities and wonderful people. The choosing of pictures illustrates a valuing of, not only the quality of the photo, but the subjects and the activities selected. Only the most important photos go into the family record book.

Are you in the family album? How many times? Who else fills the pages of the best memories book?

Poetic captions scribed beneath the photos are more than titles to a story. They’re windows to relational experiences and a prompting to tell of similar events. The highlighting stories speak to strong connections. Even a shadow of the photographer’s character is revealed. Is the person working the camera creative––close ups, bird’s and worm’s eye view, panorama shots? How well does the photographer know the interests and sensitivities of the future viewers?

Getting together years later and looking back at key events or people allows for an opportunity to assess what’s really important in life.

In my novel, Baggage burdens. albums play an important part in Jill’s life. By looking at her grandmother’s retirement-home album, Jill learns of her grandparent’s love for gardening and each other. At the same time the stories sparked from the album nourish a deep-rooted respect for Josey, Jill’s grandmother.

The albums that Jill creates for her family and her niece’s family reveal a hungering creative spirit in Jill. Like her grandmother’s albums Jill’s family albums comfort her and provide clear evidence of her husband’s love for his children. Jill also discovers that albums also point out missing events in her life, events that reflect painful circumstances.

Album Effects

Jill looks at her grandmother’s bulky photo album, a catalogued of flowers conveying a gardening history of her grandparents. It also shows their efforts to create a park like setting. 

‘What a marriage they had! They planted, pruned, and weeded together. They traveled to several places in the States purchasing special roses.’ 

Jill marvels at how her grandmother talks so highly about George, her husband. As Jill flips through the album, Josey’s voice rings in her ears. Each picture blossoms into a new planting adventure. Josey loved talking about the photos and George as much as she loved working in the garden. 

Jill flips back to the first page of the album. The pictorial recording begins with her grandparent’s arrival at the property. Josey had said, “We came to view this two story house because it had three bedrooms. We wanted enough room for our children and grandchildren when they’d come to visit.” 

 “Seeing a hedge of yellow roses, Golden Wings, bordering the long driveway to the house hooked us,” Josey exclaimed! “We had to explore the rest of the yard. Before we entered the house, George knew he wanted to buy the place.” 

The following week Jill impressed Josey by identifying many roses in the yard. Josey’s proud smile became an incentive to memorize the names of other flowers in the album. 

Jill opens one album. Daniel’s preschool years flood back. Shock stamped on her face when Daniel sprays her with water. There's a time Joseph’s camera eye catches Jill wiping Daniel’s chocolate-smeared face.

Another picture shows Daniel’s head poking out of the side of some tall raspberry bushes. He had asked if he could help. Later Joseph caught Daniel’s red stained mouth, proof he was sampling instead of picking. Joseph’s caption, “IN THE BASKET, NOT YOUR MOUTH,” always drew a quick defense from Daniel and laughter from Joseph.

Jill opens the second album, a new chapter in Daniel’s life. Her smile disappears after turning a few pages. She’s the photographer. She’s documenting an ever-growing closer relationship between Joseph and Daniel. Nowhere is Jill seen. Pictures feature Joseph running beside Daniel for his first bicycle ride and Daniel sitting on Joseph’s knees steering the lawn garden tractor. The photo of Daniel sitting on top of a pile of pruned lilac branches to weigh them down as Joseph drives the tractor supports the caption, Dad’s Helper. The following picture shows father and son working together in the garden. Joseph scribed the caption, “My New Thomas.” Jill recalls Daniel beaming when he read it.’

Jill turns her attention to the memories spilling out of the bulging envelope at the end of the table, memories of Daniel’s sixth birthday party. Flipping through the pictures she sees herself in half of them. A smile lights up her face.

 ‘Rebecca takes good pictures.’

‘I’ll make an album for the Wyller family starting with the birth of John-Ryan.’ In planning the cover Jill envisions a black background and a bright emerald green title: JOHN-RYAN. In smaller letters beneath she sees two lines: Century 2000, and His century.

Several weeks later when Jill shows Scott and Julie her album she explains the green represents fireworks against a night sky. Streaks of green from the lettering race across the page suggesting a celebration. Flipping the cover reveals a picture of John-Ryan taken on the day of his birth. It fills three quarters of the center of the black background.

At John-Ryan’s baptism Jill’s camera captures Pastor Swanson sprinkling water on the baby’s head. Four small pictures occupy the corners of the second page. Tears flood Jill’s eyes as they did at the end of the baptismal ceremony––she speculated about Christine, the child she lost.

When Jill flips to page three, an empty page, she collapses in tears. It’s blank black appearance draws Jill back to her loss, to a child who didn’t make it into this world. A cool dampness invades Jill’s body as if she walked into a cave; a cave reporting unfulfilled promises.

Julie and Scott are shocked by Jill’s sudden mood change. Julie glances at the blank album page for a clue to Jill’s distress. It doesn’t help. Unable to do of anything else, she wraps her arms around Jill. Julie’s warm hugging body returns Jill to the present.

 haiku capsule:                 

family pictures     

a memory treasure chest

relationship glue

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