THE MOST IMPORTANT THING LOST WHEN WE DIE IS THE MEMORY WE CAN NO LONGER SHARE WITH OTHERS

If you have ever lost someone you loved, you will quickly know what I mean.  How many times after my parents died did I wish they were there to ask them to identify a picture in my mind or a photograph.  There were so many things they knew that I had not yet learned.  When my husband died, all his engineering and mechanical knowledge went with him as did all that he had learned about tying knots he had learned in the Navy and so very much more i wish we could have shared..

One of my daughters and I have been scanning photographs and clearly marking about whom and when and where they were taken.  It is time consuming but we both remember my urging my father-in-law to show his slides as I marked and dated them before he became legally blind.  Somehow we never have enough time for all the the things we want to do and I definitely do not wish to spend my remaining years on this earth preparing for my death, yet it is important to this daughter that she carry family history for the next generation and I want to help her as much as I am able.

Kay 18 months

Debbie, 4, Kay, newborn

The greater benefit of this project is that we talk as she gets the family history with each picture we scan; I get to relive the time and she gets to share in the two generations before her.  To get a perspective on this tiny little girl in 1958 reaching up to the piano, it is important to realize that the piano was a studio (tom thumb-55 key) piano, not full sized.  On the right, her sister, now a grandmother, holds her little sister.These are family treasures which many people do not take the time to value.  I once visited someone who was showing me her family album in which pictures were unmarked and undated.  When I mentioned she might want to do that I was told, "Oh, I know who they all are an when they were taken."  My sarcasm which seems rarely to fail me in moments like these replied, "Oh, I am so relieved you plan to live forever."

With software that shows slide shows, we can put pictures into a folder and do an ersatz time lapse.The dresser behind her is the standard height, which shows this tiny little girl who, her pediatrician told me, was the tiniest normal child in his 5000 patient practice.  She is a middle aged adult now, slightly over five feet tall, but we can never forget her as a diminutive child.

Take some time out of your life now to save having to do a crash save later.  It is so much easier, as you will have so much more to remember and no one to ask about the past as you near your own absence and availability to your loved ones.