The Family Photo
My husband and I have been married almost 39 years. That’s a long time. We’ve had a storied life with 4 children, growing numbers of grandchildren and lots of ups and downs.
Over the years, we’ve tried to capture our family cohesiveness with a professional photo. I confess, never was such a feat welcomed, or quite frankly easy when our kids were in those emerging years. Getting everyone in the same place with some semblance of cooperation was a task and a struggle.
Circa 2005. We were in the throes of life. College happenings, hectic high school schedules and girl scout meetings took up lots of space in my weekly family calendars. We didn’t do this very often, but I planned a family photo shoot that could only be possible in a narrow window of time; sometime between Tuesday chaos and Wednesday hectic. You know how it goes; yet I was determined to get THAT photo.
Let me set the stage. Our oldest was preparing to return to college. She indulged us, but her ride back to school was waiting. Her wings were already taking flight. Our sons were reluctant, one sweaty just off the soccer practice field, and the other just plain stubborn. Our youngest . . . well, she was sweetly cooperative just because she was still sweet. Even my husband didn’t want to be there. He’s not one for photo shoots. We had our beloved dog with us, and I was mortified as she felt comfortable enough to defecate in the photographer’s back yard. In other words, the flawless image captured was nowhere near the angst-filled and imperfect reality of our family. Each of us wilted our way through the late August afternoon. Smiles felt illusive. I questioned in the middle of it why I didn’t choose to go to an air-conditioned movie theater by myself. However, I was determined. I dug my heels in toward the goal reminding myself and everyone else: “You WILL smile!”
That August afternoon photo was hung for years in a prominent place of our home. It turned out to be a nice photo. We are all smiling after all, and I really do love any image when we are together. All of us have walked by countless times, often forgetting it was there. Yet today, my husband and I were in sync. Reflecting in a moment of mutual self-actualization, we decided to take it down. We realized our family has moved on from that harried August afternoon. We are a much bigger family these days. There’s no way we can encapsulate who we are without the inclusion of our kids’ life partners and their little ones.
Despite the messiness behind the manicured moment in time, this photo will always make me smile thinking about that day worthy of a sit-com episode. I’m a little less controlling these days. Now, I don’t care so much about coordinating outfits. I’m happy just being together, and just hope someone pulls out their iPhone to take a photo that simply has everyone in the frame. On those rare and now even more treasured times, no one will ever have to remind me to smile again.