Recently I attended my uncle’s funeral and I got another reminder on how short life is. My uncle was only nine years older than me. My most vivid memories were when he was a teenager and he chased me out of his room. Seems like I always was in his stuff. Now all I have are his pictures.
It had been a long time since I had seen my cousins. We stopped having family reunions because my uncle was the one who organized them. Now we only see each other at funerals. Even then not everyone comes. I had so many second cousins – I had no idea. They didn’t know about me either. Life passes so quickly.
My other uncle is still living. As I chatted with his daughter I realized she didn’t have any pictures from her childhood. She was reminded of that when she saw the photos from my uncle. Her comment made me think about a box of pictures I had at home. They belonged to my mother (who is in a long-term care facility and not able to tell me about them). I promised her I would look.
I couldn’t wait to look through those pictures. They were just a mess. They are yellowed and faded, but I found some wonderful pictures to send on to my cousin. Memories I had, too. I was a teenager when my two cousins were babies. It warmed my heart to see my grandmother holding them.
Picture http://www.canva.com
Those pictures were just another reminder that it is important to label pictures. Retirement is a wonderful time to do that. I will guess the years. I am even going to try fix the faded colors myself using PaintShopPro. Once I’m done I will send them to my cousins. At least now she will have something to share with her children.
Life is short. My friend is doing genealogy and she tells me how important it is to date things and keep documents.
Those pictures were just another reminder that it is important to label pictures.
Thinking about my children, they put most of their pictures in the cloud. So what happens to them? I may be odd here, but I like pictures in an album of some sort. Shutterfly does them at a reasonable cost, plus you can always get a coupon.
It’s not too early to think about Christmas gifts. Maybe this spring is the time to get started. It also might not be a bad idea to put them on a USB drive in a safe deposit box in case something happens.
I’m always talking about leaving a legacy. Family pictures are part of it!
When my children turned 40, I scanned their pictures and put them in a power point. Did you know you can insert what is called a Photo Album in power point and it will put a border on them for you? I then took the slides and inserted them with the other pictures I had. I added captions by inserting text. The nice part is you can save the slide show as pictures and print them out into a book or put them to music on a CD.
Best part – it was fun! My family appreciated seeing how they changed over time.
So where are your pictures? In a box? In a scrapbook? Are they labeled? Will people know where they are?
This generation is always taking pictures so pictures must be important. Leave them some memories that will last a lifetime.
Til next time,
Life Part Three 