My mother's work

I have finished digitizing what I believed to be the essential parts of the memory albums compiled by my mother. I also took the opportunity to update the family website.

I met with Mom a few times, bringing my scanner and computer. We went through the photos together and commented on them. As I mentioned in another post, I’m not the one who remembers the most from my childhood or even my teenage years. This digitization project brought me back to a past others have described.

From birth to adulthood, seeing myself evokes feelings whose nature, reason, or significance I can’t quite grasp. What strikes me most is the strength of my mother’s memory.

We talked about all kinds of things: how she met my father, their honeymoon back then, and, because they didn’t have much money, it was a very short trip to a few regions of Quebec. Her comments here and there reminded me how hard my mother worked to raise us.

Pointing to some photos of me:

— I made your clothes.

— All of them?

— Yes, even the winter coats; we didn’t have much money.

— But they’re beautiful clothes!

— Of course, you know I’ve always loved nice things.

Or, talking about school lunches:

— I made you hot meals every day. Each of you had a thermos.

— What??

— The others were jealous of your lunches.

I felt guilty for not remembering any of this. My sisters have better memories of these things.

These few revelations made me realize the immense effort required to shape us into who we are. While, of course, we remain responsible for our own destinies, our paths would have been poorly guided without the efforts of our parents—the laughter of my father and the skilled hands of my mother.

Everything is connected, as they say.

I remain captivated by specific photos. That proud look of my father holding us in his arms. That other look from my mother dancing, gazing into the camera as if to say, “This is my life, and I’m happy with it. And him, he’s my man.”

It’s not so much a feeling of growing older that catches up with me as an unwavering joy of being alive and having been loved by this couple. We can never celebrate enough this bittersweet luxury of being aware of our existence and its inevitable end.

In these perplexing times, in this year where, according to astrologers, everything might be decided, let us strive to be grateful for our presence on this little planet and never miss a chance to express our joy at being with those we love.