Some treasures you set out to find; some find you.
When I started to sort through all the boxes that had been in our storage unit, I knew that my favorite absurd cartoon was in there somewhere. What I did not anticipate were all the family photos that came from my Mother after she died. They had gone en masse into the boxes, not to be examined until now many years later. Fortunately my Mother had written notes on the back of some of them to identify people, places, and dates.
Others, like the one above, had no notes. I can identify the people in this picture. From left to right: Debby, my almost Irish twin; Justine “Bibi,” my oldest daughter; Mary Teresa, my youngest sister; and me, in the denim overalls I used to wear in the late 70s. Debby was living with my Father around that time. Her surviving sisters (Kate and Sara) identify the Christmas card arrangement on the wall behind us as her work.
What strikes me about the moment captured in this picture is how happy we all look. Those who knew and loved Debby and Mary T know how much pain they endured in their lives, lives cut short by the underlying causes of that pain. So, to see the two of them bursting with the fun of being alive is a source of great joy, the joy of knowing they had happy moments like this.