Fade Away And Radiate

I've had a bit of revelation. It's not a big thing, so no jumping up and down, shouting, "Eureka!" for you and me, but look here: these are my grandmothers Edith and Gladys on Thanksgiving Day, 1965.

Though I accumulated a handful of additional grammas along the way, these are the two I started out with, and these pictures were recovered from a box of Dad's slides. As far as anyone knew, these pictures didn't exist, but when my cousins, sisters and brothers saw these pictures for the first time this fall, it was as if we had a window into the past we barely remember. Mom, all of 25 in these pictures, and Auntie InExcelsisDeo, then a wide-eyed teen, are the only people to ask about faces we don't remember. Thing is: Mom and Auntie I. don't remember, either. In forty years, the children of my nieces and nephews may not even have heard my name. Though these pictures were taken by Dad with nothing more in mind - probably - than his recording for himself this day in their shared lives, 44 years later, they become a reason to smile at the camera now and say, "Cheese."