Precious Memories

Precious memories, how they linger…

Hubby and I have been cleaning out our garage. Since we’re home a lot, it seemed like a good time to do it. Tucked away in the corner were boxes and boxes of slides, movies, memory boxes, and books, all waiting to see the light of day.

We spent a week going through over a thousand slides that dated back into the 1970s and 1980s. There we were, looking young, thin, and ready to take on the world. Our grandparents who have long been gone were there on the screen, eliciting clearer memories of when we were together. Our children were small. Sometimes it’s hard to remember our children when they were small, learning to walk and play, but there it was in color. It was like dusting off something that hasn’t been used in a while, but you’re glad to find it after all that time. The photos helped bring back the feelings and memories that we hadn’t thought of in a long time, and we got to value them again.

And old home scenes of my childhood, in fond memory appears…

We’ve been going through movies too, the super 8 kind. I’ve had a peek into Hubby’s youth, much of which was centered around family gatherings. All his grandparents lived in the same town as he did so the movies show lots of events when they were together. I listened to him as he would say, “oh, I remember that. We did this and that…” or “I forgot about that…”. I could hear the fondness in his voice as he remembered. Even after 43 years together, I learned more about his childhood.

Precious father, loving mother, fly across the lonely years…

I didn’t live near my grandparents, but my granddad loved to take movies. Movies of me as a very small child, my brothers as babies, and my grandparents helped bring back a lot of memories for me. I’m rather amazed at how far back I can remember when a picture triggers a memory. Seeing my parents as a young couple really exposes how the cycle of life keeps going around.

How they linger, ever near me…

We’re having our slides and movies digitized so we can pass them along, not in boxes but in thumb drives or CDs. We can share them with our children, although many of those scenes will mean nothing to them because they didn’t live them. They’re only photos or movies of people they’ve heard about or seen listed on family trees.

That’s the thing about hanging on to the past. It means little to those who didn’t experience it. The memories I treasure are mine. The memories my children treasure are theirs and may be quite different than mine. The point is, I don’t want to push off what I treasure onto them. Rather than leaving them boxes and boxes of our memories, we’ll digitize them and let them pick and choose. Besides, thumb drives don’t take up much space. Technology is a wonderful thing when used for good purposes.

Precious memories how they linger, how they ever flood my soul.
In the stillness, of the midnight, precious sacred scenes unfold.

Endnote: I’ve never understood why the song Precious Memories was in our church songbook, other than it was a funeral song. My memories aren’t sacred, but they are precious to me. The song is public domain so it’s okay to be used here.