The Picture Box

     I have always loved photographs.  One of my favorite childhood memories is sitting with my grandmother and going through her picture box.  I would sit beside my grandmother with the box in my lap and we would look at every picture while my grandmother told its story.  If I was really lucky my mother and her youngest sister would be there to chime in and sometimes argue over details forgotten by one of them.  I felt included in a life that existed before I did.  To know my grandmother as a young woman and my mother and her siblings as children was a wonder to me. I cherished those pictures with all of my heart.  

     When my grandmother died I am not sure what became of the picture box (a bedspread box from Sears & Roebuck with yellowed masking tape on the corners).  I can only assume that the pictures were somehow divided among my aunts and uncle because most of them are still among family. Even without the photographs, the memories are clear - theirs and mine.  I hope one day in the future, I will sit with my grandchildren as I hold photograph after photograph and tell them the stories that make up our family.