memories
I’m going through the photos I have taken this year with the amazing little camera my parents gave me for Christmas 2006. I’m sorting (on my hard drive) and editing (in Photoshop) and reminiscing about the year my little family has had. Quite the single mother tour de force.
One of my presents to Nicolas is going to be a photo album of his year. I’m hoping to put together one for last year, as well. We’ve had such adventures together, just as a pair, with his beloved Grammy and Grandpa, and in the company of amazing friends. I look at these photos and marvel at how much he has grown…
and how much I have already forgotten.
I had forgotten this day…
I use Shutterfly to put together photo albums. They do a good job printing and you can write the story for each picture. I haven’t used it much because 1) I was living in the UAE and it was just impossible to get things mailed to us there and 2) photos are a luxury I can’t quite afford. Which means that, browsing around on my account today, I have stumbled across a wealth of photos I had thought were gone ever since the ex deleted most of the files on the hard drive of the computer he sent back to me (aka, no photos, and no music!). I still don’t have copies of all the photos I have taken, but there were so many albums of our lives in the UAE, photos of his friends there, our homes, the deserts and the Gulf. Slowly, the King of Everything is forgetting the time we spent there; I would like to write the story of our two years in that place, for him to carry with him as he grows. I know this will turn his memories into mine, cement them into the Official History of his first four years… but photo books can be a tender repository for the best of times, and we can quietly edit out the worst.
What I am not sure of is how useful one of these albums would be to his father. These are not his memories. He was not here. Would he enjoy reading of the life we have built here, without him, or would it hurt him? Do I edit myself out of the few photos I’m actually in, and not taking? I don’t think I can do it. It still hurts to remember him wandering around our living room, removing the photos of me, of us together, from his life and replacing them right then and there with photos of his family, his friends. He didn’t even wait til I had left. He did it in front of me. He did it to hurt me. And it did.
At least I don’t have a photo of that indelible moment in time to put into my own scrapbook of memories. I’m hoping it will fade and erase itself with time.
Tags: Christmas, gifts, memories, photos, pictures, pictures-of-children, shutterfly, single-mom, single-motherRelated Stories
POSTED IN: family fun
2 opinions for memories
Kelly
Dec 12, 2007 at 1:13 pm
I know what you mean about not being able to hold onto all those precious memories. I’m so grateful to have a blog to help with that. I put everything we do in it so I can go back years later and remember. I only wish I had one when my daughter was little so I could have recorded things like her first step or the silly things that toddlers tend to say and do.
I was just recently trying to do one of those Q&A things about what went on THIS YEAR, and even then I was having trouble remembering. So it’s good to have the pictures, and a way to journal about all of my adventures with my girl as she grows up.
That’s pretty cruel that your ex switched out those pictures right in front of you, and that he deleted files off the computer before he gave it to you. I hope he’s grown up a bit since then and isn’t so vindictive anymore.
As for giving him an album of the past year, I guess the answer to that can only be found by someone who knows him and how he’ll react. If he truly cares about the KOE, he misses not being a regular part of his life, and those pictures would at least give him a small piece of that. My daughter’s father was absent from her life until she was 10 because he just wasn’t interested. After he came back around last year, wanting to get to know her, that Christmas we gave him a box she had painted for him, and inside it were pictures of her growing up. He really appreciated it.
Christina
Dec 12, 2007 at 2:12 pm
Thanks, Kelly. I suppose I’ll wait until the ex shows some real interest in his son. He blames the time difference (nine hours) but I know for a fact that he can call any time on weekends, or we’ll rearrange the KoE’s schedule so he can have some quiet time in the mornings to talk to his father. But when we go weeks, WEEKS, without hearing from him, and when the only time he calls is when I send him a text telling him to do so… it’s hard to believe he cares. He never sends emails or notes or letters. He lies about when he’s going to make a payment to the kid, and never apologizes, forcing me to ask again, when is he going to get caught up.
I guess when he fixes these things, I’ll believe he wants to be a part of his son’s life. Til then, we’ll make our photo albums and get on with our lives.
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