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Remembering a photographic memory
By Tim Carroll, The Flipside
We were a little short on grandparents when we were young. My father's mother was our only living grandparent and she was in her 90s when we were kids.
Therefore, everything we knew about our grandparents came from stories, photographs and household knick-knacks that had been passed along.
All four grandparents were "off the boat" from Ireland, probably passing through Ellis Island with a few million other Europeans about 100 years ago. Geneology was never a hobby in our house so I can only assume they had few possessions and settled in with other family members in Chicago on my mother's side and Jersey City on my father's.
Life was certainly a struggle for my grandmother and three girls as a result but I rarely heard an unkind word spoken about him. Instead I heard that he never met a stranger and had the ability to hear a tune once and play it right back on the piano. That's all I can tell you about John Lynch.
I knew less about my Chicago grandmother. I would imagine that there aren't many stories because she had her hands full just "managing." My father's parents were even more of a mystery for reasons too numerous to mention.
When my own mother died in 1999, the task of cleaning out the house fell to me. I spent days sorting through papers and photographs. There was some glassware and handmade doilies and two old claw-foot chairs that had been passed down from my grandmother, but that was about it. It was easy enough to move the furniture and appliances along, but my mother's top dresser drawer made me pause.
Mixed in with the jewelry was a retired fire captain's badge and under the tray was an envelope filled with family photographs. I realized that they were the only personal items my mother had saved from her parent's belongings.
I imagined her 50 years earlier in the same place I was - faced with a house full of stuff and a few boxes of memories. I could almost hear her saying, "Now, you're not really going to take that back to Texas, are you?"
I soon found myself packing less and giving away more. What had started as a massive project became liberating as I worked through the house. I did haul home a suitcase full of photographs and some other odds and ends, but everything else stayed in New Jersey.
Ten years later, I have no regrets. That box of photographic memories can be opened any time (or accessed on my computer). I also found a safe place for my grandfather's old fire captain's badge - right there in the top drawer of my dresser.
Contact Tim Carroll at flipside@tx.rr.com
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