The Faces of Those Gone

My family is a big one, the average household having six kids. Out of the tens and tens of us, I am the only one who has pictures of my grandparents smiling. And now … those smiles have traveled the world. My mother printed them herself, proudly placing them in her home.

This is the first time in our family’s history that we have photographs of our grandparents. My parents have perhaps one or two blurry photos of their own grandparents, nothing more than the tales I’ve heard as a kid.

And I can’t help but feel excited, maybe even a little sorry, for the generations to come. They won’t just have pictures of us. They’ll have everything. A digital archive of our lives. The good, the bad, the utterly ridiculous. Every celebration, every ordinary afternoon, every unfiltered second.

Lord help them.