Thread Towards All That Was

A friend’s fiftieth birthday.  The second one this year.  All the oldest friends will notch their half-century in 2016.  For the second time this season a person’s wife or girlfriend has put out a call for old photos and remembrances.  That box beneath the luggage there in the hall closet.  I see the photo I want from years ago in my mind.  It’ll be there.  I’ve thought this for days.

There are many, many photos.  I was that man.  I was that kid.  I had that waistline.  And my wife was young and my children were young and every picture is cute and adorable and romantic.  And you sigh because everything isn’t especially cute and adorable and romantic just now.  The pressures of life are not especially photogenic.  Considering further you remember the disruptions and defeats and struggles that made up that time that informed each smile.  The pictures don’t lie.  They’re just selective.  You can take them for the second they captured or begin a thread towards all that was.  And I select a pile of photos of my daughters to show them versions of who they were, for when they return home. 

By now I’ve flipped through hundreds of photos but I haven’t found any of the friend I’m looking for.  Isn’t there one of him with my mother in law?  There’s this one from another friend’s wedding but everyone will already have shared that.  Then I remember there is yet another pile in the hall table drawer.  Now, there is the one I had in mind.  And this one here will be good.  But it’s all pretty paltry pickings by the time I’m done.  My old laptop is still the repository for all the digital era photos.  Fortunately it still fires up after all this time and there I find some snaps that will work.

Photos scanned, I reread the email that started this whole adventure.  They want thoughts, too.  Photos alone will not suffice.  Think then, about this person who has been like a brother.  Think about how to summarize three decades in three paragraphs.  Again, consider the moment of a photograph and then let the thread lead you on to consider the bitterness and the beauty of all that has been.