The other day I mentioned that I experience more sad moments now, but that does not mean that we don’t experience many joyful ones as well. Our Saturday meeting with Joan, my Twitter friend, is a good example of that. Even in our daily lives we have such moments. There are also times when I experience both joy and sadness at the same time.
As we arrived home from lunch the other day, Kate asked me her mother’s name. When I told her, she said, “I wish I could have known her.” I said, “Let’s go inside, and I’ll show you some pictures and tell you about her.” Once inside, I took her to the hallway where there are several family photos. I pointed out one of her mother that is a favorite of mine. It must have been taken when she was about twenty. Kate has always liked it as well. She asked me who it was. For several minutes, she looked at it and commented on her mother’s eyes and how beautiful she was. She was deeply touched. Then I showed her pictures of her father. She asked his name and said, “He looks like a good man.” I told her he was “a very good man.” I followed that by showing her a photo of her grandmother. Kate was excited to learn that she had been the first member of the family to attend TCU.
After looking at these pictures, we went back to the family room where I showed her an album she and her brother had made of her mother’s family. It was just like the first time she had ever seen it. She was excited.
After dinner that night, she worked on her iPad for a while. I noticed that she had put it down and was just sitting in the chair looking bored. I brought in the “Big Sister” album that her brother Ken had given her a year ago. We went through a few pages together before I took my shower. She continued to look through it until she was tired, but she had had a day of pleasure looking at her family photos.
They were moments of joy for me as well, but that joy was accompanied by a measure of sadness as I perceived that the pictures did not bring back memories in the way they had done in the past. They only served as brief moments during which I told her about her family. The memory was gone just as fast as I gave her their names. Her interest in the photos struck me as a vain effort to reclaim her memories of family. We’re in a different place now.
