Memories

Smitty, multimedia guru

Smitty has spent the better part of three days transferring video tapes to DVD.  At the same time he has accomplished the transfer to mp3 of an interview he did with my dad twenty years ago.  Technology amazes me.  I wonder what we will use to store memories twenty years from now?

Granddaughters Clare and Hannah, 2002

The tapes have zipped me through several decades of Smith/Vassar/Grover/ Nolan history.  The images on the TV screen brought tears.  Our granddaughters' first Christmas in Pennsylvania started the tears as they opened gifts, read stories.  A trip to the Pittsburgh Zoo, reading "Thunder Cake" during a thunder storm.  Where are those two toddler girls now?

Grandson James and granddaughter Rachel, 1999

Another tape showed our grandson as a tiny baby being teased by PopPop and Uncle Joe.  Today he attends college; his sister is in junior high.

Our son marched with pride at his graduation from boot camp looking like an enthusiastic teenager.  His wedding to his lovely wife, Barbara, and his commissioning as a Naval officer raced past.  How handsome he looked in his dress whites.  Our daughter, Jennie, sang for Dan's wedding, then could be seen as a glowing bride the day she married Shaun.   We found clips of my mother sharing advice and stories  in a number of the films.  I glimpsed Tim, our youngest, in many tapes.  Throughout the videos friends, family, and neighbors, who look much younger, created a memory parade.  My heart ached from reminiscences of people and time that have moved on.

Listening to my dad share anecdotes of his childhood produced longing.  He has been gone a long time, yet I often wish for time with him.  He had the gift of story-telling and could make us laugh with his funny expressions.  Hearing his voice and recognizing some of the experiences he shared with Smitty brought a smile to my face with a tear in my eye.

My dad and I in the Sierras, about 1958.

God has made it possible for me to live an amazingly full life, to which the tapes testify.  Friends and family I will treasure always .  He has promised me a future equally as rich.  I am privileged to take my past with me into the future with the technology of the present.