It took me a while this evening to land on what I wanted to write about: I spun the wheel a couple of times, but was uninspired by what I read so took a pass. One of the posts I read was a Memorial Day 2012 piece I wrote honoring my father and his military as well as his civilian service. It was a good piece–you can read it here if you’re interested. What caught me about the post was the two pictures of my father–one as a young second lieutenant in uniform, the other as an old man looking into the camera and saluting–and I rediscovered what I want to write about this evening. I am grateful for the various forms of media that tell the stories of my life. Whether it’s the many photographs of my family that are on display on the shelves in my bedroom, the pages of journal writings scribbled in dozens of books over the years, or the videotaped interviews I did with my father a few years back, I am so grateful for the many ways my life story and parts of our family history are captured. And while I do need to catalogue some of these things and put them into some order (I have stacks of old photos scattered across my desk comingled with bills, old grocery lists, and bank statements), I am grateful to have them.
Here is a weird case in point: I have some voicemail messages on my cell phone that are about seven years old–they go back at least four phones. The oldest one is from my ex-husband calling to tell me about some concerns about our daughter and the “young man” she was interested in at the time (they were both 14.) Others were from my children updating me from college or places far away from me. Most are from family: a sister-in-law singing to me for my birthday a few years back, my nephew thanking me for a birthday gift I’d sent him some years ago, a distraught sibling who’d had a disappointing encounter with another family member. I have messages from each of my siblings–some discussing mundane things, others more serious–and a few from much-loved siblings-in-law. I wish I had one from my Dad but I don’t, and my mother died long before I even had a cell phone. These messages are in many ways part of the soundtrack of my life and I am so grateful to have them.
The other day I went through and listened to them, deleting a few because my voicemail box was getting full and couldn’t store any more new messages. It was tough to cull them, but I did delete enough so people who call me now can still leave messages. Perhaps this all sounds weird, but I don’t feel at all apologetic about it. I know that if I had a serious case of the blues or of missing a particular person at a time that’s inconvenient to call them, I can listen to the voicemails and gain a small sense of comfort. After my mother died, my father left her voice on their answering machine for many months. It was quite jarring for me to call the house and hear my dead mother’s voice answer the phone and tell the caller to leave a message. But now I understand better than I did back then his desire to hear her voice in whatever way he could, to be comforted by the sound of the recording in the absence of her physical presence.
Eventually I will probably erase the voicemail messages on my phone–either by accident or intentionally. But not today, and probably not any time soon. They, along with the pictures and videos, letters, cards and other pieces of memorabilia are all artifacts in some form or another of my life, of my shared life with people who are most important to me. I continue to treasure them all, no matter how odd it might seem. I am grateful to have them. I am going to post below the picture of my Dad saluting. I’ve included it in this blog a number of times before: it is a well-loved photo that is propped on the shelf across from my bed where I can see it every day. I am grateful for the way it and all the other artifacts connect me to my history, my ancestors and the people, places, and objects I hold most dear. I am so blessed.
Dad Salutes
