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Before my mother moved away, she left me a box of miscellaneous mementos she had safely stowed away in her basement crawl space.  As so often happens, I collected the materials and shelved them in my own home for another day.  The box followed us, unmarked and overlooked, into our second home.  On a summer day, as we shuffled boxes and bins looking for something and valiantly attempting to make sense of the chaotic contents of our garage, I found pieces of my past in my mother’s castaway clutter.

My daughter, entranced by the random collection accompanied me on my journey through old pictures, assignments, yearbooks, and keepsakes.  I introduced my daughter to new chapters of an old story.  Among the photographs was an overly posed, professional picture of two teenagers standing close, their awkwardness and affection at once innocent and endearing, familiar and foreign.

At dinner that evening, my daughter’s enthusiasm over her day’s discoveries exclaimed, Mommy has a boyfriend!  I smiled at her choice of tense, amused and enchanted that she so naturally merges moments from the past with the present.  It is a special gift of time and I am endeared by my daughter’s wish to know each of us, as individuals, among stories and photographs.  We introduce her to our selves and she loves us all completely.

Tagged: Daughter, Photographs