“Reclaimed Memories”

After someone dies, how can you remember them? What do we have left when people are gone? How can we know about their lives? We remember their stories and have our memories of them. But those fade so quickly, soon lost in our own minds and forgotten. Maybe we have letters and journals. But that can’t show us how it was, truly. We can only imagine.

When my grandparents and father died within two weeks of each other, I found this bag full of negatives in my grandparent’s house. Some of these photographs I have seen in albums and on display, but others were either never printed, or simply forgotten. These negatives span from the 1920s to as recently as the past decade or so.

There are also color negatives from the 1960s and 70s. They are mostly of my father and his younger brother. I never met my uncle. He died before I was born; I never saw my father interact with him. But in just a few photos, you can see the story of how close they were unfolding.

I feel as though I’m reclaiming memories. I wasn’t here when these photos were taken, but I’ve stood in the spots where there were. I’ve heard stories about and met some of the people in the photos. I have enough of a working knowledge of family history to name most people in the photos; I can pick my father out in every one. The second I stumbled across these negatives, I knew I would scan them and then ask my father to tell the story behind every single one…but he died before I had the chance.

So while I will never fully know the stories behind some photographs, at least by digitizing them all I’m saving them for the the people who knew them and the next generation. Because I’m reclaiming their memories, I can show my future children who their grandfather was; what he liked at their age (trains, trucks, maps), what he looked like when he was little - maybe they’ll look like him. And maybe by reclaiming some memories, I’ll create a living memory of my father.

How can you remember someone after they die? Reclaim their memories. Don’t let them die too.