A perspective on history and living.

Justin and I had the pleasure of paying our respects to a friend's grandparent this weekend. I say the pleasure because being a part of the service where a women, well into her nineties, who was the grandma of one of my best friends, crosses the divide from this life onto the next was very meaningful to me.

 I met her once, maybe twice. And Justin had never. We walked in to see the family and the set up was per the usual. One thing I noticed immediately was the collection of old photographs framed and placed on a centered table. WOW. That was all I kept saying...on this tiny little table, in this quaint little church here sat almost a century of history. And all that life was captured in these photographs and preserved for this very moment. Well, of course these photos were meant more for moments prior to this one... like the many times I'm sure the family pulled them out and laughed at their outfits or their silly faces. Or the time they displayed them at graduation parties and weddings, or that time the grand kids decided to look through them to see what their grandparents where like in their twenties. All I kept thinking was ALL that history and ALL that life, those many, many years....they were all there on this table, represented in a photograph. Each of them honoring a singular moment within this wonderful woman's ninety-some years of life.

And I couldn't help but think about myself through the scattered tears of melancholy, that one day this would be my table and my life in photographs. And that one day someone I photographed will have a photograph I took of them sitting on their table. This though nearly shook me.

Having this perspective on history and on living instilled and reaffirmed the belief and the value I place on the work I am doing. That there is meaning in this dream, and it's so so much more than just pretty pictures.