This morning my dad was sitting at the dining room table with coffee in his hand and his macbook opened up to iphoto. I peered in to see what he was doing as I pulled my own coffee mug from the cupboard and asked, "what are those pictures?". He told me he'd taken ALL of the slides from when we were kids and had them converted into digital images.
I stood behind him looking at images of myself that I haven't seen in years, probably 20+ years. We had very few snap shots of our growing up years, as slides were the "thing" so our photographic memories have been stored in numbered boxes in my parents garage for over half my life.
There wasn't time to sit down and look closely this morning, as holiday errands beckoned me to keep moving, but those images are waiting now for me to peruse more closely and at an honoring pace later on today or tomorrow hopefully.
Still, the images quickly stirred my memories and left me thinking a bit about who I was as that little girl, what my dreams were and wondering who my parents thought I would become as they experienced my little self.
Conversations this week with Katy and Allison have included our wondering about the little girls and what life will look like for them in 15 years, and who they will be. We all have our ideas, and it is fun to listen to my older children talk about what they see in the little ones and what they imagine. These conversations inevitably invite my memories of the older kids and questions about what I see and what I think about who they have become and are continuing to become.
There are things I knew when they were small that I see unfolding today in some of the ways I'd hoped, and other things that truly do surprise me.
What did Mary know? How did a teenage girl hold so much in her heart and maintain her sanity? Was she aware of who she was holding in her arms...who she really was holding?
Was I aware with my own children? Will one of my children change the world? Probably not, and yet there are world changers out there and its possible one my five could be a world changer. At the very least, they will each have the opportunity to change the piece of the world that falls within their spere of influence, as do I.
Today I am very aware of my dreaming and wondering about my kids as I carried them in my belly, as I held them in my arms and as I continue to watch them grow.
I really enjoyed this post, T! I hope that you are able to savor those moments looking at the pictures...I would love to look with you later if possible and hear your stories!
The dreaming and wondering is a sweet picture that I love to watch unfold for you!
Posted by: B | December 22, 2011 at 02:33 PM