Today is my mother's birthday. I have her baby picture.
As I continue to sort through and catalog my family photos it has become obvious to me that having a searchable database of all the images can lead to some interesting pairings. Take these two photos, for instance.
Taken roughly 50 years apart from each other, they show a constant in my life: my mother and father were inseparable. Not glued at the hip like some couples, but inseparable in the sense that whatever happened in their lives the gravitational forces that bound their souls would pull them together again. They were not perfect. They didn’t always agree with each other. They certainly didn’t always agree with me.
But somehow they were able to keep their disagreements separate from their egos. Being “wrong” about anything didn’t mean they thought the other was wrong in the head. And if you took it that way when they thought your ideas were not quite right, that became your problem, not theirs.
As for the searchable database, I am using an application called PhotoMechanic. We used it at work. I bought a copy when I retired. It lets me add metadata quickly to all my photos (keywords, dates, places). If you’re consistent, then these moments of magic just kind of appear right before your eyes.
My mother
She was 18 months old.