I have been trying to get photographs moved from photo boxes to albums for 20 years.  Really. Twenty years. 

They haven’t been spread out all over the whole time.  I have gotten them out, sorted, discarded some, and boxed them back up more than once.  I couldn’t find photo albums I wanted until two or three years ago.  I got the albums and additional filler pages.  Eventually, I started loading photos only to find the first groups were too small to stay in the pockets.  I got black acid free paper and cut it to fit in the pockets and stabilize the photos.  Sometime in August, I set up the folding table and cleared the kitchen table and went at things again.  I have made very slow progress.  Slow progress is still progress. 

I find the task of sorting and deciding how to load them and the actual loading into the pockets tedious. The real challenge is seeing my tiny children in the prints.  I miss those little people so terribly much. 

I am trying to get this task complete because I do love mine and Rock’s two people and I want them and their girls, the Duchesses, to see all these pictures.

I want all of them to see all the grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins, friends, too.  The family connections and where we come from.  Roots matter.  That is one of the major lessons I learned from Granny Sally.  She taught it through family stories, through visiting cemeteries and explaining the family behind the names carved in granite, through cooking her mother’s dumplings for me when she could and pinto beans when she couldn’t.  

Mother was always pulling all of us together.  Family ties matter.  Something about knowing our people creates connection.  I try to get our children together whenever we can.  We have several friends who are closer than a lot of our family members.  They create an even richer connection for us. They are included in my party tribe these days. 

I don’t remember to take pictures enough when we are all together.  I am in very few of the photos scattered on the table because I was always behind the camera. We all have phone in our pocket to take pictures.  Yet, I forget to do it.  Another thing that I don’t like is having everything digital.  I would like to have a lot of the photos saved on the computer or my social media account or a thumb drive printed into those ready-made photo books.  One of my sister friends is scanning her old prints of photos on to her computer.  It’s all a bit overwhelming for me.  There seems to be no end to this project. 

Oh, well.  I will keep progressing.  Slow, no doubt.   Slow progress is still progress.  I will keep reminding myself.