The last time I was visiting my parents I managed to track down a rubbermaid container filled to the brim with family pictures. It contains hundreds of pictures that when you start digging are countless memories and faces that make up who I am. My goal is to find order and bring the past to life. They always say that a picture says a thousand words and I believe that. One of these days all of these pictures will make their way onto my computer and ultimately into a book. When pictures fade, discolor or simply wear over the course of time it does something to my heart. A goal of mine during the course of the year is to begin assembling the time line of pictures and then share that with the family.

It's easy to get trapped in the mindset that our parents are the individuals that we have known since birth and confine them to that. But I am always amazed at the people Paul and Brenda were before their three kids entered the world. Young kids who wanted to live, experience life and see the world. They busted out of Bayonne and haven't looked back since. I admire who they are, but I find myself possessing a similar spirit to the young P & B who camped out on the beaches of Hawaii, drove across cross country buying a plot of land in Idaho and trekked along the coast of California. With each picture I come across my mom and dad come across less as parents and more as people who have always possessed a level of passion for life that was then passed onto their kids.

There are moments when looking at pictures still strikes a nerve or causes my throat to tighten at a past that part of me feel has faded. Smiles and memories of when my sisters and I were little kids riding horses,  smiling on the beach with surfboards in hand as the thermometer read thirty degrees and sitting around the table eating pancakes that mom made hot off the griddle.

I don't think it will ever not make my heart a little sad and a little happy, but my hope is to never allow the faces and memories to slip through my fingertips. Memories and what was is a part of all of us. It's sometimes easier to not think about, but all of the good, the bad, the sad and the joy forge us into who we are. So before December rolls around I hope there will be a book assembled with the history and life of a little kid and her two sisters from Medford.