Maybe our Blogs Acutally Mean Something

My family, mostly on my mom's side, likes to take photographs. Lots of photographs. So many that I find many memories of my childhood are shaped and influenced more by the photos than by the true memories,
i.e. "camping" every summer at the cabins at Mohican: I can independently "picture" only two memories from our yearly visits there, but I can remember scores of pictures taken of the family floating in inner-tubes down the river, us kids playing in the tubes on land, and our then goofy looking parents talking, resting on hammocks...usual summer stuff.
So much of our family's history is told by photographs and the stories told while pouring over the photographs together.

This year Katie and I visited my extended family for Easter. In addition to the standard food, lounging, and discussion, there were photo albums and stories (mostly of an awkward childhood Mark). The most meaningful moment that night was when we went through an old scrapbook - long before my time - of my grandparents' marriage and honeymoon. They were younger than Katie and me (!), but getting married at that age was fairly common in early Colonial times (sorry Grandpa/ma, I just couldn't resist). We found a letter my Grandma wrote to her friend detailing their honeymoon - a roadtrip to New York State.

There are a few perfect moments in your life that can never be planned or re-created, and often we only understand after the fact. This was one of only a handful I've ever had.

Katie was reading the letter out loud for my cousin and me who were looking at other albums, scouting out more embarrassing childhood photos of each other. Gradually all of the conversations around us quieted, and faded out. Katie was now telling the story of our family's genesis to our whole family. As she read, we lived vicariously through the first of our grandparents' many travels. We drank in every detail as two fresh young newlyweds - barely grown farm-kids - got soaked on the maid of the mist, got lost in the foreign countryside of New York, navigated through terrifying traffic in NYC, and even got in an accident delaying them in Pittsburgh. Out of that letter came a side of my grandparents I had never seen before that moment. I learned alot about them, and grew to love them even more as I imagined them as newlyweds, young adults, my peers.

It was such a powerful moment that I got to thinking about family history in general. My siblings and I all keep blogs. Steve and Lara write about the trials and joys of bringing two beautiful children into the world. Rachel and Andrew are living their lifelong dream of biking up the West Coast and across the U.S. together, living out of a pup tent. I'm writing stories late at night just to keep myself from going crazy studying. Right now, we're writing to our family and friends, and to deal with the everyday. But maybe these blogs will become more. Maybe these blogs will be to our kids/grandkids what photo albums and old letters were to me. Someday 60 years from now, a family yet unborn might hush and listen together as someone reads my history back to me, learning about a Grandpa Mark they'd never known before.


Hopefully they'll skip my rant about cinnamon.