“One touches and, in the act of touching, one's touched.”
Aldous Huxley
A “Hand Out”
When your spouse or any other loved one dies, eventually you will find yourself in front of the family picture box. Now I realize that everything today is digital—that photos travel around the world at the speed of light. I know that everyone everywhere is armed with cameras, high tech phones, and gigs of memory to capture life and all that is going on around them.
But, if you will fess up, you will admit that somewhere buried in your belongings is a “picture box.” It is one that perhaps has been handed down, and chronicles the events of your family as far back as some of the first cameras. It is your record, your story, your legacy—all in one box.
If you are a baby boomer, you have spent hours poring over these actual “photos” that one can hold in one’s hand. You would have retreated to that box on rainy days that kept you inside as a child, and harangued your mother with questions of just who that guy with the mustache was in that old sepia photo. You would have tried to commit to memory the names of uncles or grandparents, and tried to burn these facts into your brain, like someone making a fresh copy of a CD or DVD. You would become a walking tribal trove of family information, able to repeat all this to your progeny and so on, thus keeping the family alive.
So, I sat and pulled out photos and CDs of current events in my life, finding myself strung between two worlds, with me being the bridge from the 40’s to the now.
I studied these photos, and hungrily absorbed the most recent ones that held those precious images of my husband. I studied myself as well, thinking back to the infinitesimal moment when the lens snapped and that time was captured forever. I saw myself as a young woman, as a wife and mother, as a worker, as a grandmother. Yes, it was all there, nothing had changed. But suddenly I started to notice a pattern. There was this “thing” that I was doing in so many of the photos. In a lot of the pictures I had my hand on someone, touching them as if to anchor them. Or perhaps I was trying to hold onto them for posterity, just like the photo would “hold” their memory. Touching--always touching--my loved ones in the family snapshots.
It was as if I was making sure they were “there,” touching them to seal the moment and make sure I was truly connected with them. Picture after picture revealed this quirky thing. It was amazing—even the photos at my daughter’s wedding reflected me touching my soon-to-be son-in-law on the arm, one arm linked in his and the other hand reaching out to touch him. It was not a grip, but looked always like a light tap, just to make sure it was all real.
And, as I thought back on it, it was not a bad idea or strange habit. As I saw myself reflected, touching all those I loved—I knew I had been there, that it was real. Somehow it worked in a strange way for me. It made “real” that man I loved so, by touching him. He really did exist, but now was gone. It was not a good dream followed by a bad one. It was life and I had lived it. He was there with me. Just like I felt he was now. Just like he was and continued to be each time I have hugged my daughter or granddaughter. He was there, through that DNA that they carried, through the memories that swirled in my mind so much lately. He was there in those photos that would remain, so all the world could see that our love did happen.
Thank God I touched all those people then, and now could see that they had been at my fingertips. Never forget these words when you are making a picture, instagramming” something, or taking a video. There will come a day when some of those you love will only exist in that picture box or on that media that you have. Never let yourself regret the feeling of a touch that you lost, by never reaching for them in the first place.