My grandmother is a pretty sentimental person and keeps anything remotely linked to a memorable event. She still has clothes and shoes from 20 years ago, which she refuses to give up. She has old china that hasn’t been used in ages. She has unusable lamps, rolled up rugs, and a sewing machine that is obsolete. My grandmother’s hoarding isn’t completely futile, though. She has a compilation of photographs, assembled in various albums, that is truly nostalgic.
On a recent visit to my grandmother’s, I asked if I could look at some of her albums. We played a game of hot-and-cold as she tried to direct me to various points around her apartment. All the while she sat in her standard recliner chair in the living room. Eventually, I discovered the albums tucked away in a drawer in a dresser in my grandmother’s bedroom.
The first album I looked at was a big, heavy, white booklet. As I opened the cover to the first page I was struck by the black and white photographs, realizing that they must have been taken before color pictures were accessible. The seemingly old age of the photographs communicated their enduring quality and timelessness. I began to focus more intently on the content of the photographs, examining the depictions of a bride and groom at their wedding.
The groom was dapper and handsome. His shy smile alluded to a feeling of nervousness, yet his gaze toward the bride showed a sense of caring and love. The bride was notably shorter than the groom, but her radiant beauty and joy raised her presence to meet his height.
Wedding pictures are magical, representing celebration and love. I was so entranced by the photographs, that it some time for me to wonder whose wedding was being portrayed, closing the album and reading the words on the cover,
I was amazed to discover that it was my grandparents’ wedding album. My grandmother was forever frozen as a young, elegant woman in those photographs. The memories of her wedding were preserved in black and white, non-digital, unaltered images. A picture says a thousand words, communicating emotions and connecting viewers to times past. I can understand why my grandmother would never want to throw them away.
