White Flowers

My first picture of this journey.   I thought I’d start with a picture of my “new” camera I bought from my friend Jil.  And pictures.  That is really what drew me to this project.  I love pictures.  Moments in time.  Visible memories.    Photos of loved ones, photos that evoke emotions, and some photos that capture what words can’t express.

One photo I wish I had is just the memory of a warm summer day I drove down the street and saw a lemonade stand with a squad car parked just ahead of it.  The officer was standing by the make-shift card table stand with the huge sign “LEMONADE 25 cents” taped on the front and was taking a drink from a tall paper cup with his head back, downing it with gusto.  The little boy seated behind the table was looking up at him with the biggest smile I’ve ever seen.  It made an impression on me, but probably not as much as the impression made on that little boy.   It's one of my favorite photo memories I can only wish I had to show you.  It makes me smile every single time I think about it.  Adoration wells up inside when I think of that officer who puts his life on the line everyday, and yet took the time to make a small boy's day.

Some photos lose their meaning and that loss is more a passage of time than anything else.  I kept a clipping from my hometown paper posted the year after my high-school graduation.  At the time I was working at a doughnut and coffee shop; all my friends were at college or moved away, but I had to work a couple of years before I could go college.  My small hometown was building a new hospital and a red-headed Mr. Wonderful starting coming into the shop every morning, buying a coffee and doughnut for himself and his friend before heading out to the construction site.  I was deeply in crush.  My boss even noticed one morning as I fumbled through making change to him.  I saw out the corner of my eye that knowing smile and felt embarrassed.  I remember the day I threw away the clipping of the wedding announcement of Mr. Wonderful and his new bride.  I don’t even remember their names now.  I just remember the feeling, sort of a freedom.   I also remember my Grandmother saying as I headed to college, “Well, if she’s not going to get married, it’s a good thing she’s getting an education.”  I thought at the time, little does she know.  When I was five, I told my kindergarten friend my grandmother was the wisest women in the world.  When she challenged me by saying she was going to ask her, I told her my grandmother was also the humblest and would deny it.  My childish insight proved truer than I thought.  That’s not to say I won’t ever fall in love and marry – but I’ll never be able to have the experience of loving one person all my life and sharing memories of children and grandchildren.  I’ll have no pictures to share of someone who has my eyes, or wishes they didn’t have my straight hair.  And it’s okay.  I am loved and that is enough.

Some photos are forever a part of you and become more cherished each passing day.  My favorite photo of my mom and me was one taken on Mother’s Day.  We were on the front lawn of our home standing near the evergreen that had once been our Christmas tree.  I had a cream-white suit on with a baby blue blouse.  I held a blue carnation.  My Mom had always told me that on Mother’s Day she would wear a colored flower while her mother was living and a white flower when her mother was in Heaven.  That Mother’s Day Mom wore a while flower.  I remember after my grandmother’s funeral my mom saying she felt like an orphan.  Being in college, and young, I found it a strange statement.  I now understand, for now my flower is white. 

Some pictures have become my white flowers in life, symbols of the important bonds that bind, reminders of those I love but can no longer see or speak to, symbols of what made me who I am today.  Some pictures are my colored flowers and represent the life I live now.  My hope is that one day my photos will become someone else’s white flowers.  And that will be enough, a life well spent.