Somehow, we think we will remember these moments ~

Thinking back to 1980, when Jane was a newborn and Audrey was just two and a half years old, I can just imagine Christmas coming so quickly as the days, and most especially the moments, passing in what moms and dads do in the days before Christmas.

Decorating. Finding the perfect Christmas Tree. Shopping. Wrapping. Baking. Visiting. Entertaining. Reading bedtime Christmas stories.

Then the ordinary daily tasks of grocery shopping. Making breakfasts, lunches, dinners. Packing lunch boxes and bags and thermoses. Good old laundry, piles and piles of it. Housekeeping. And then some. I was on maternity leave from my teaching job back in 1980 and I researched content and wrote lesson plans when my babes were napping.

The moments coming and going like a string of beautiful Christmas lights. Sometimes blinking, when we stop to figure out what’s going on, but mostly just lighting our lives with a soft, soft glow.

We never imagine these moments passing so quickly, thinking (I think) that everything is being so perfectly stored in our heads, our memories, like a chronological photo album or video reel.

Somehow, we think we will remember these moments.

Then, 38 years later, a photo appears. We grab hold of that string of soft, soft glowing Christmas lights that is now millions of miles long and magically travel back in time. We stop. For one moment.

We do remember. We can hear the moment. Feel the moment. Touch the moment.

Cherish the moment.

Ah, photography at its most magnificent.

Giving us the gift of remembering these priceless moments in time.