Oh, yeah, that’s me. During this merry month I was born. While I do not tend to shout that information about, it does give me a unique opportunity to share images of the people who brought me into this complicated, beautiful world. I still have this dress. It’s a soft pink, many layered affair, with a pink silk ribbon at the neck. Of all the outfits I must have worn as a baby, it is the only one my mother kept. As it hung in her closet until the day she died, it now hangs in my closet on its small white hanger. I keep contemplating getting it framed.
In this image, my mother sits with one of her sisters. When this image was taken, I do not know. Probably early 1950s, well before I was born. And this is her in the 1960s, I think.
She never dressed this way around me. I think raising four children can wear a person down. Thank goodness, she was persistent.
Here’s my dad as a little boy during the 1930s, and then twenty years later serving in the Korean War.
I heard he could have quite the temper as a young man but I only knew of him as a gentle soul and the person who would eat anything I put into his hands, even a Milky Way candy bar where I had licked away all of the chocolate.
When I was little I asked my parents questions about the stars in the sky and never really asked about how they met. I’ve heard rumors that my mother set sights on him before he set sights on her. He was interested in one of her sisters but somehow my mom managed to be around whenever he came visiting. Lucky for me.
By the time I came along there were two big brothers who were kind enough to keep an eye on me and the little fellow who followed not quite two years later.
What more is there to share? Well, as an adult I am notorious for finding the bright side, and I think it is in part because I had such a bright childhood with so many good people around me helping me laugh.
I’m grateful to have these photos to share and to help me hold onto the memories.
Of late I have received so many calls and notes from friends and family, all suffering in some way, but mostly feeling alone though they are surrounded by others. I hear only their words, and know that there is always more than one side to any story. I can make no judgements about those others in their lives. I just wish that all were happy and each knew how precious each day was to have such people in their lives. I can listen to the words and I can read the notes but I cannot change behavior. But there is something I can do.
Each spring into summer, I buy seeds of all kinds, in packages large and small. I send them out into the world to family and friends, of all ages, to help people pause and maybe even share a precious moment with others as they plant the seeds in the soil. I send them to the closest of friends and family, and I send them to family and friends I know not very well at all. I send them to the people who cannot speak to each other in hopes they can plant a seed together even if they do so in silence. It is a selfish act — to know that I did something, gave something, to another. I do not know what the seeds do for the recipients or even if the seeds are planted. I simply hope they are. I hope they are.
Words + Images 