Tuesday, October 5, 2010

falling out of nowhere

     I was cleaning out a stack of papers this week and found a 2x2 inch old photo of my mom and dad on the day they were married.
      I don't know why it was there amongst old reciepts and old warrantys.
      I stopped and looked at their faces for a long time. It's in black and white and a head shot, stopping just below the collarbone. They look really happy together with their heads leaning in towards each other and touching at the temples. It was right after the war, with both of them looking thin. She had on a "shared" bridal gown and he had on a borrowed suit. On just for pictures, to be handed to the next couple in line along with the cascading white bouquet of flowers. What was theirs was minimal. Simple thin gold wedding bands. The white, rounded toe, high heeled shoes she wore were hers and the white gloves in his hand were his. You can't seem them in this photo, but it is in another picture I have. No money for any extras, or fancy bridal parties and frills. Only love and hope for a better life. A chance to laugh again and to celebrate life while in love. At the end of their 50 years together, their relationship was nothing of the romantic sentimental kind that movies are made of. They had grown apart many years ago, with a strain and impatience where nurturing and affection used to be. They were ill, tired. But still there was something between them. An understanding of all that they had been through and that even though their relationship had changed, there once was a passion and love that had brought them together.
      That is the way I want to remember them. I know they had happiness before I was even born that I will never know of, as others don't know of happy moments of ours. Some things are just not talked about. They just were. We don't always  understand love, or what brings people together or what pushes them apart. Love cannot be contained and frozen in time . It is forever growing, giving, evolving. But it's the fact that it was there at all that makes me smile.

6 comments:

  1. what a beautiful observation

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  2. Your words are so true, And so beautifully presented.

    Sometimes I get angry because we as a society tend to feel like ours shoud be something scripted out of Oscar winning movie sets. I get frustrated that friends of mine leave beautiful partners because "there is someone out there better for me." when in actuality there probably isn't. I love that people from yours and my parents generation stayed even though not of movie blockbuster because we do evolve. But are still connected. Not of the dispossable society that we are now. Throw it away, I can get another one....
    Bah.

    Thank you for sharing.
    I loved this!

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  3. Sorry about all the typos!
    (Can you tell I haven't turned the heat on yet and I'm sitting in a heavy woolen sweater and my hands are freezing?)
    :-)

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  4. A lovely post. I'm glad you found that photo.

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  5. That must have been a really special moment for you to come across a picture of your mom & dad on their wedding day. I have absolutely no pictures of my parents standing together, let alone of the day they married.

    I believe in the saying that it's better to have loved and possibly lost than to never have loved at all.

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  6. Thank you for the comments. It's really about so much more than the photo. If you have loved even for one day then you have not lost. You have opened for the possibility to love again.

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