so many photos, so little time

Late last week I read an article about printing out photos for your children's children. It was a great reminder that just because I may currently have a gazillion more photos of my Lovie than my parents had of all three of their kids combined, doesn't mean that Lovie will get to any of them if I don't get them printed.

I have an ABC book printed with images from Lovie’s first 15 months, as well as another book printed documenting her first year, but that’s it. Every other photo since then sits in my computer. Sure it's all labeled by year and month. Sure looking through the photos in order details her life pretty awesomely well. But. What happens if my computer crashes?

I have nothing other than her first year and a half in print (and a couple of canvases up on the wall).

This needs to change. Soon.

 

For Father's Day I took Taye and my dad out to eat to this Italian joint way out in the burbs. I called up my nephew Jordan to see if he wanted to join us since the restaurant was near where he lived (and since he doesn’t really “do” Father’s Day since he and his dad/my brother haven’t had a relationship since about 2005).

All of us met in the parking lot of the restaurant and when I saw Jordan, a smile immediately erupted on both of our faces. Man, I love that kid.

"I got something for you," I told him getting out of my car while he approached, arms stretched out.

"Yeah?" he asked, sucking on a lip ring. "The time capsule?"

"Dammit, no, I'm sorry. I couldn't find it yet but I do have something probably even better."

I opened the hatch to my car and found a big, brown photo album and pulled it out and handed it to him before sifting through other crap to find a second photo album, smaller and gray.

"You gotta promise me something first," I told him. "These are yours. This is your life so these are yours to do with what you want, but please, please don't destroy anything."

Jordan's eye brow rose as he chewed on both of his black lip rings.

I opened the brown album he held and pointed to the green Sharpie writing: May 1992 - 1998. Opposite the writing were three photographs tucked behind clear plastic. All three photos were of Jordan as a newborn.

"Holy shit," he said.

"Yeah," I answered. "This one," I said, opening the gray album I held and pointing to the green Sharpie writing on the inside cover "is from ninety-eight to two thousand."

He looked at me a bit stunned before looking at his girlfriend who smiled at him.

"I've been holding on to them for a while and since I couldn't find the time capsule, I thought I'd give them to you now. But, there's pictures of him in there...”

“I haven't touched these in years so there's pictures of everyone,” I quickly added.

He stood there for a moment flipping through some pages. Pages with photos of him as a baby, a toddler; photos of him with his young, smiling-yet-tired looking parents; photos of people who are no longer alive; photos of some really great times, no matter how ordinary they were then.

“Thank you,” he said giving me a hug. “I didn’t think anything like this existed for me.”

I smiled, “You’re just lucky you were born before I got a digital camera.”