Picture This!

Melanie snuggling with the boys

A picture sometimes takes you to forgotten places. Memories can be quickly triggered by seeing pictures from our past. And our memories are rich with images, emotions and even experiences of pain and pleasure.

During our coldest Minnesota winters, some friends in southern California will text me pictures of warm, sunny days, saying, “Picture this!” Evoking comforting memories during subzero temperatures seems both kind and cruel. I’ll sometimes text back pictures of snow and ice, saying, “Woe is me!”

We are all familiar with the emotional extremes that pictures can create. Many of my family pictures make me smile. Sometimes they make me sad. I made the mistake recently of looking through the pictures on my phone while flying home. As I browsed through the pictures, I paused on those of Elijah’s funeral. The memories flooded over me as I sat quietly weeping. But as painful as those memories are, they hold for me that last precious goodbye to my son.

Have you ever stumbled across pictures or videos that you had forgotten about or thought were lost? In this age of cell phone cameras and convenient selfies, we might easily take for granted the importance of capturing those little moments with our loved ones. But how glad our family is that someone thought to capture all those memories. Our regret was never that we took too many pictures. We only wish we had taken more.

During the emotionally numbing week preparing for Elijah’s funeral, I was overwhelmed by all that needed to get done. The one thing that brought our whole family together was creating Elijah’s video and collage tributes. It takes a lot of time to collect, process and select pictures to tell the story of a person’s life. We’ve done similar things for our children’s graduations and weddings, but this was an emotional roller coaster ride. While we would find ourselves oohing and aahing, and sometimes giggling, I also wondered at times if I could endure the pain and tears. It’s as though each picture poked a hot iron directly into my already broken heart.

But I realized this week that there is a worse pain than remembering a lost loved one from pictures. It is the pain of fading memories when there are no pictures. In talking to an old friend about the loss of their son a few years ago, he told me that his wife had no pictures of just her and her son. She seemed always to be the one taking the pictures. It remains one of her biggest regrets and a source of continued pain.

It doesn’t seem possible that we would forget about our loved ones, but memories fade. No parent wants their children to be forgotten. I’m glad that we have so many pictures with our children. I’m glad that I have them always with me on my cell phone. The only thing more permanent would be tattoos of my kids so they might be assured that I will never forget them. Maybe even tattoos on the palms of my hands so that I would see them all day long, no matter what I am doing.

Did you know that our Father in Heaven feels the same way about those of us who are His children? God says:

Can a mother forget the baby at her breast
and have no compassion on the child she has borne?
Though she may forget,
I will not forget you!
See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; (Isaiah 49:15-16)

God shines his face upon you, holds out his hands to you, and says, “Picture this!”

Please ‘like’ and ‘share’ this post as you find it helpful and inspiring. Thank you.

-Ken Buchanan