Photo of Hope

I haven’t really “met” a photo that I haven’t liked. Some photos may be blurry, others might just seem to be of some old building, others are of people blinking or looking off to the side, an uncooperative child may have a truly grumpy face, but most have some value to me. That blurry photo may show how much taller Uncle Wallace was than his siblings. Those old buildings are Grandpa’s old barns and corroborate my memory of their locations. That blink may remind me of how I always have to remind Aunt Fanny to try really hard not to blink when I am taking a picture. Besides, even though Aunt Fanny is blinking, that is a really good picture of Mom standing beside her. That grumpy-faced child might remind me of how my four-year-old granddaughter, Jooniebug hates to stand still for even a moment.

So, I haven’t really met a photo that I haven’t liked. I say that the only bad picture is the one I didn’t take.

So, it is difficult for me to pick a favorite photo because I love so many of them. I am particularly fond of videos of my Jooniebug and me, and of Jooniebug and my son, playing a memory game that I made by printing two photos of several family members onto cardstock. We place the pictures facedown and try to pick the match for each card. Jooniebug loves to play the game.

 

 

For several years, I have been trying to get my children interested in our family history. Unfortunately, I seem to have failed in getting them interested but my Jooniebug gives me hope. I have an album of old family photos on my phone. Jooniebug will often crawl up into my lap and ask to see the “great-greats”. We will scroll through the album of old family photos on my phone and I will tell her who each person pictured is. She has gotten to where she can name a few of them without me telling her.

Now, Jooniebug and her family live in West Tennessee and we live in Middle Tennessee, so I don’t get to see her often enough. One time my daughter called me and asked if we had a Great-great-grandpa Joseph. I asked her why and she said that Jooniebug had drawn a family portrait. Jooniebug said that one of the colorful scribbles on the page was Great-great-grandpa Joseph, another was Great-great-aunt Mary, and another was Great-great-grandma Rachel. Well, Jooniebug does have a Great-great-great-grandpa Joseph, a Great-great-great-aunt Mary, and a Great-great-grandma Rachel! Jooniebug may have been mistaken about the number of greats, heck, sometimes I get the number wrong too; but she had remembered some of her family members’ names!

 

 

Roxanna sent me a picture of Jooniebug’s drawing. The drawing doesn’t exactly show that my Jooniebug will become a great artist, but she seemed to use every color in her box of colors. At the tender age of three, Jooniebug appreciated that our family is just a bunch of colorful mutts!

So, the picture of Jooniebug’s family portrait has become one of my favorite photos. It isn’t a photo of an ancestor that has given me a face to go with a name on a branch of my tree. It isn’t a photo of my Grandpa and Grandma or of my granny, all of whom I knew and loved. It isn’t a photo of my Aunt Davilee with her big personality shining through. My favorite photo has become a photo of my Jooniebug’s family portrait.

That photo gives me hope that my Jooniebug will keep the names of our ancestors alive. That photo gives me hope that one day, decades from now, my Jooniebug will be sitting in a chair and her grandchild will crawl up into her lap and ask to see “the great-greats” on her phone. Jooniebug will pull out her phone, open up the great-greats album and tell her grandchild all of the family members and how they are related. Her grandchild will interrupt at times saying, “that was your Baba’s daddy, that was your Grannyma’s grandma Rachel, that’s Great-great-great-great Aunt Alta”!

This photo of Jooniebug’s drawing is my favorite because it gives me hope that our family will be remembered!