Cherished Voices
Silently, yet so full of stories, the plastic box sits on a closet shelf, patiently waiting for me. I lift it carefully and place it on a side table in the bedroom. Just the motion of lifting it seems to wake something. Perhaps it’s the light reaching the contents through the translucent sides, but the box seems to take on life, like a faint buzz passing through the sides and into my hands.
I unlatch the lid and raise it to look upon faces I’ve known through my life: parents, grandparents, sisters, cousins and children. I realize the buzzing has become a murmur of voices, each of the many photographs inside whispering a narrative about events, as well as emotions. I move them around, sift through them as I listen to their tales, stopping at the one picture that always seems to draw me into its very depths.
All are relative to my life, but this one stands out from all the others, going back to my very own beginnings. I hold a photo of my parents standing on my grandparents lawn on their wedding day. In a photograph that was black and white until painted in watercolor by a dear friend of theirs, it seems as though he was drawing the joy on their faces into the world around them. Every time I look at this, I recall the wonderful home they gave me and I hear their voices once more.
in the joy of youth
sealing their love with a vow
bond of a lifetime
For Haibun Monday: Murmuration at dVerse,
qbit/Randall asks us to consider a single element of a greater whole, telling how it stands as a part of the group, yet apart from it.
What a special memory and what a wonderful legacy for the generations to come. Nice, Ken.
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Thank you. 🙂
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Beautiful.
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🙂 Thank you, Jazz.
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You never cease to amaze me Ken. Thank you. Like Jazz said beautiful.
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Thanks, Daniel.
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As I wrote this, I thought of your recent reminiscence.
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Memories consume… Beautiful
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Thank you.
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And they certainly do.
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This is a lovely tribute to your parent’s wedding, Ken.
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Thank you, Robbie.
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What a sweet and loving haibun. It speaks much of the love between your parents.
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🙂 Thank you. Just out of high school, but they made it last a lifetime.
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That’s lovely. Flicking through photos n a screen is not the same at all!
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Thank you, Sarah.
Yes, a photograph seems so immediate. A digital image presents itself as a whole, but with a photograph I find that my eyes scan, taking in different aspects of the image.
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How beautiful, Ken.
Sadly, I find voices the most difficult to vcall up, though they come unasked to memory when they will.
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Thank you, Sue.
Interestingly, that wedding photo also brings up my grandfather’s voice. Maybe because it took place in his backyard, but I (we) lived with him from the age of 6 to 11, and he lived with us for a few months when I was 13. When I was 9, I traveled with him from Buffalo to Minneapolis, a 2000 mile round-trip drive in the days before interstate highways so that was a lot of time in the car. I met family (his sisters) I’ve never seen again and saw some pretty amazing sights (with no photos, sadly). That is one of my favorite memories from my youth.
Wow! All of that from my parents wedding photo. Thank you for helping me reminisce, Sue.
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Wonderful memories, Ken. My mother gave me a batch of old family photos a few years ago. the memories they evoked had been locked away for years, just waiting for a key 🙂
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photographs murmuring stories is like walking through history
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Yes, it is. You never know where they will take you.
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I enjoyed the release of voices, Ken, I also like the contrast between the silent plastic box and the murmur of voices when the lid’s removed, and the way you zoom in on the photograph of your parents on their wedding day.
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Those kind of boxes do buzz, so full of feelings…a moving write.
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Thank you, Janice. There are a lot of memories there.
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Beautiful. We sift with you through the box, and then finally get close to the deepest connection. Love the hand-coloring by a friend who wanted to bring forward their joy.
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Thank you, sir!
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Those cherished boxes carry our life stories into the future, eventually fading into the past. Loved this!
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Thank you. 🙂
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You’re welcome!
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There’s no better gift that parents can give. (K)
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🙂 My mother wasn’t thinking clearly after my father died and threw away many snapshots of our childhood. The wedding photo had been in an album with other large format photos of that day, as were some studio photos of my sister and I before I was six, and those were saved. (And she did save our school photos – to our embarrassment when viewed by our children!) Hers was a very slow advance, but it was an early sign that a couple of mini-strokes had taken their toll. My sister reminded her how important family photos are, and she was religious about saving them from that point on.
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I know that feeling of s omething lost…my grandfather threw out everything when my grandmother died. All those photos, the history, gone. My father was not sentimental, but I wish I had something more now.
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Good observation of what these photos can bring to mind: “each of the many photographs inside whispering a narrative about events, as well as emotions.”
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Thanks, Frank.
And they do have stories. One photo is of my son sitting in a small helicopter (at an air show) with the stick in his hand, turning to the camera with such a light of excitement in his eyes.
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I really like how you trace the story in that string of photos… and still there is one that seems to be all in one, both the past, present and the future which is you.
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Thank you, Björn. Yes, we are the sum of so many elements that may seem peripheral to us but really do represent all that we are.
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I love the voices murmuring their own stories, and the special one which will always stand out. This is a happy box of joy.
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Thank you! I enjoy visiting it.
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