A Dad’s Letter To His Daughter About Photographs

Hannah,

As I write this you are just over three years old. If I counted each day you have been alive on the earth that number would come up to around 1200 days, give or take a few. If I could count the number of times you have been photographed in today’s modern world with cameras and phones that serve as cameras which are owned by almost every person you know then I imagine you have been photographed on average once a day. Sometimes I even think you could add together the number of times your Mom and I have been photographed overall in our lives and sometime before you zip off to kindergarten the number of photographs featuring you will surpass those of us combined with relative ease.

Don’t misunderstand me; I’m grateful for the possibility of having a camera at my beck and call. I have been able to capture some moments I normally would not have been able to do so if I hadn’t had that phone/camera thing at my ready. When you were younger taking your picture was a challenge because you didn’t always want to smile. After a time though you caught on to what was happening and whenever I would pull out my phone you would automatically begin saying “cheese” and then you would pose with your heart-melting, teeth-baring smile. I must admit I sometimes wondered if you even knew that the device I held in my hand could even make a phone call as it seemed we only took pictures with it until one day your eyes lit up when you heard your grandmother's voice talking to you over that device that mostly took your picture but moonlighted as a phone.

As you grow older you may not stop to think like I do sometimes about all these photographs that we are able to take nowadays. It will likely be just part of what you do every day. We can so easily capture reflections of our lives and then just as easily share them with others, nearby or faraway, in the blink of an eye, or in keeping with the photography theme, in a flash. Being older and reflective though this ease that comes around now gives me pause.

I think of my family. I think about a few birthday and anniversary celebrations we have had in our time that somehow involved pictures being on display. Because of these events, I sometimes think I have seen almost every photograph of each person in our family since it seems the number of pictures is limited. I know that’s not the case but still there’s not a lot of photos from years gone by that suddenly pop up today because, well, folks just couldn’t take pictures with such ease and frequency then like they can now. I really am glad to have the photos we do have but it sometimes seems when I look at these photos I feel I have already memorized each pixel on each picture. It almost seems like there is nothing new to gain from looking at them again.

I am also reminded of your Pappaw, your Mom’s dad, and how his family lost many of their family photographs in a fire. Again, there were few photos anyway and then the fire reduced that number even more. I understand why the few photos they have are so precious to them.

Maybe all these things combined together is why I ponder if all these pictures we take today without really much thought mean anything at all. It just seems so overwhelming when you stop to consider the sheer volume of photographs we take every day and then accumulate, it is just part of what we do now. In past times, taking a photo was sometime a major event--at least with those photos that were a bit more formal or staged such as family portraits or school pictures. Cameras were even a bit of a luxury for a time, especially when a family had little financial resources anyway.

Today it’s all so commonplace. Taking a photo is no big deal. It seems we are more wrapped up in momentarily capturing a moment instead of realizing we may be capturing more than a moment, we may be capturing a lasting memory. When I look at my older family photos I generally only have one photo to view. Today, I can take forty pictures of the almost same pose or scene and then spend twenty minutes trying to determine which one is the best shot. When we had just that one photo I really had to study it intently to get more out of it since that’s all that was left of that moment. Even now, I look at some of those old family photos, and while wishing there were other photos from that time, discover myself really studying that one lone photo just to help me recall the people, the places, the surroundings and maybe even that very moment captured in time. Sometimes, I look at those photos and I just miss some of the people I see there, some now gone on to their reward, some changed by age and circumstance. That’s when I study the photo even more intently, I look at the expressions on each face, I look at the smiles, I look at the frowns, I look at the eyes, I look at the hair styles, I look at the clothes, I look at the background. I find myself trying to squeeze out just a bit more memory about that moment and those people.

Despite the glut of pictures we can now take and hold on to maybe someday you will find yourself in a quiet moment and in a mood to look through snapshots of the past. Maybe then you will stumble across one photo and with just a glance that one photo makes you pause to take a long hard look at it.  Maybe you will, maybe you won't. When I consider such a moment taking place in light of today’s world of arm-contorting selfies and strange model poses and pouty duck lips and pictures of what we’re about to eat and pictures of our pet’s new sweater thinking that you will have a moment that makes you just stop and study a photograph just doesn’t seem to be as likely. But maybe that’s just me. Maybe it’s all just me growing older and seeing things change despite wishing that the good things I know now would never change.

Or maybe it’s more me now being your Dad, and hoping one day you do find yourself sorting through old photographs until you stumble across one where your world stops, if just for a second. Maybe that moment takes your breath away while good memories rush in on you. Maybe you will even laugh when you recognize the faces and the places captured before your eyes. Maybe without notice a tear will appear and before you can wipe it away it will slide down your cheek. Maybe you will remember the moment you are looking at but maybe you won’t and maybe it will be that not remembering, that not knowing that will make you a bit more curious about all the things that one photograph places before your eyes. Maybe you will linger on the photo longer than you realize so you can study the expressions on each face, the smiles, the frowns, the eyes, the hair styles, the clothes, the backgrounds until you wish you had other photographs like it to look over so that you could feel closer to those moments, and, maybe, those people, now molded into memory. And maybe that one photo could be worth a thousand words to you but I hope only one comes to your heart then: “Love.”

“It's there to remind you
When you can't recall
What your daddy looked like
When you were so small
Though you won't remember
It'll still make you laugh
When you see us together
In a photograph
No, you won't remember
It'll still make you laugh
When you see us together
In a photograph”

Smile and say “cheese”, precious girl!

Love,

Dad (& Mom, too)

Lyrics from “Photograph” written by Ray Gilbert, Antonio Carlos Jobim

"Photograph" by Charlie Robison on YouTube

Seeing, Believing

Many of you who know us know that Hannah has an issue with her eye muscles. The actual ailment has a medical name that even on my best day I could not pronounce properly. We learned about this around a year and a half ago. After visiting some doctors the specific issue was identified. At the end of 2012, Hannah began wearing eyeglasses, pink and round. We also began patching one of her eyes a few hours each day in hopes of correcting the eye muscle problem. We did all this knowing full well our efforts may or may not work and that an outcome of this effort might still be surgery to correct the eye muscle problem. Surgery on the eyes of a three year girl, especially our three year old, was something that made us pause to hope and pray that it would not ever come to that point.

We tried the glasses and we tried the patching. We made visits to her doctor so he could check her progress. This past fall, the doctor determined that some progress had been made but that surgery would be necessary.

On a recent Friday, we rose early and carried Hannah to Children’s Hospital, just picked her up out of bed, pajamas and all, and took her to the designated meeting place. We signed forms, we followed directions and we moved from room to room when asked. We trusted medical personnel to administer medicine to Hannah to prep her for the surgery. We talked to the surgeon who reassured us the risk was minimal and that this surgery was a necessary step to help Hannah with her eyes. We watched Hannah turn a bit goofy from her medicine and then into an irritated little girl while we waited and waited and waited for our turn to arrive. And when that time came, we handed her over to these people to do what we could not do for her but would do in a heartbeat if there was a way possible. At that time we, as parents, took a healthy dose of faith and trust understanding how sometimes we have to step out of the way to have someone more qualified do what we need done for our child even when she is just three years old and more precious to us than life.

The surgery went as expected. Now we wait. We wait for Hannah to heal and we wait for Hannah’s brain and eyes to work together to work as they should.

Eyes played an important part in this day and the days leading into this one day. And for all those whose eyes helped us through that day, thanks.

It was the eyes of Hannah’s daycare teacher, Myra, who first noted the eye problem and made us aware of it.

It was the eyes of the eye doctors and their staff who patiently worked with a testy two year old who became a still-testy three year old along the way and then worked with her antsy parents to determine a path of treatment.

It was the eyes of an eye surgeon and a crew of others working with him at different stages who used their eyes to guide their talents to do what needed to be done to make this surgery happen, even using those eyes at times to read a little girl’s face and the faces of her concerned parents to provide needed comfort or reassurance.

It was the eyes of family and friends who bowed heads and closed eyes and said a prayer to see us all through and then when the surgery was over with those same eyes, now open, looked upward to thank God.

We don’t know if the surgery will do what is needed. Another surgery may be possible. We have to wait and at a later time a determination will take place. The stressful part is over for now. For now we can take a deep breath and exhale. The night after the surgery, my wife asked me to grill some burgers for our dinner. In spite of the cold weather, I fired up our grill and cooked them. I stood outside in the darkness during the grilling and in a quiet moment I heard voices. Almost immediately I knew those voices were coming from inside our house and that they belonged to Hannah and her mom. I

knew this because I recognized how Hannah said “Momma”. I think I could pick out that one word spoken by that one little girl in a noisy room anywhere. When I turned around Hannah and her mom were looking out a window at me. And it was just like in the movies except this was real. Our eyes met, smiles stretched across our faces and the realization dawned that what we have here together-good, bad, and, at times like we had just faced-even trying-is what matters and goes beyond what we can see and what we believe and into what we know, what we really know.

There Goes Another Year

With a nod (and apologies) to Billy Joel and his 1989 hit, "We Didn't Start The Fire":

Breaking Bad, breaking news, Toronto mayor likes his booze

Blood moon, green means go, big screen super hero

Zip line, flim flam, Twitter, Instagram

Kardashians on a TV show, say goodbye Jay Leno

Russia on the move, Pharrell hits a groove

Frozen fractals alert, Miley does a twerk

Walking Dead, flu shot, legalization of pot

Home or work, that NSA sure likes to lurk

There goes another year

Will we ever start learning

While the world keeps turning

There goes another year

No, we didn’t stop it

Next year will we top it?

iPhone, Android, Ms. Obama looks annoyed

Skimpy school lunch for the kids, magnets on your fridge

England’s queen still has her crown, Israel stands it’s ground

All kept under the lids ‘cause the news loved Chris Christie and a bridge

Winter Olympic games, politicians call each other names

Game of Thrones, give a quarter, open border

Minimum wage, double time, Keystone Pipeline

Oh no, is that a goiter, no, on my TV it’s another hoarder!

There goes another year

Will we ever start learning

While the world keeps turning

There goes another year

No, we didn’t stop it

Next year will we top it?

Ferguson, gas fracking, Peyton Manning, hackers hacking

Bacon, eggs, green beans, guess what Jonathan Gruber really means

Daily Show, Lois Lerner, her emails got thrown in the burner

The Pisa tower still leans, Obama plays one more round on the greens

Hobby Lobby, tort, retort, goes to the Supreme Court

Arctic blast, CNN cuts Piers, rumors and smears

Spacecraft on a comet, if we got closer we might could bomb it

Out of nowhere come the fears when a Malaysian flight just disappears

There goes another year

Will we ever start learning

While the world keeps turning

There goes another year

No, we didn’t stop it

Next year will we top it?

War on women, we can’t be friends, rhetoric never ends

Wireless net, kick the can, two hundred dollars to see a band

Hollywood is full of tripe, still we’re caught up in the hype

How much can we stand, beheadings in the sand?

Ebola, big soda, Nicki Minaj, Jay Z, CDC

Robin Williams and his fate, at the White House you can jump the gate

e-cig, Snapchat, does this shirt make me look fat

No matter what the rate, so many people still gotta hate

There goes another year

Will we ever start learning

While the world keeps turning

There goes another year

No, we didn’t stop it

Next year will we top it?

Election time, morals bereft, more and more ID theft

Pick your nose, pick a daisy, North Korea’s just a bit hazy

National budget has it’s heft, who will pay, will anybody be left

More and more of us get lazy or is everyone going crazy?

Movie star, hot dog bun, take away your gun

China owns all our loans, watch out here comes a drone

It all makes you want to run, being grown isn’t always fun

We’re wired but still alone, makes us long for home sweet home.

There goes another year

Will we ever start learning

While the world keeps turning

There goes another year

No, we didn’t stop it

Next year will we top it?