I found a box of old photo slides recently – the ones that one used to pop into a projector and view on a screen. Perhaps you have to be of a certain age to remember them! My father took hundreds of these slides over the years, and I can still remember the fun evenings we had looking at the many pictures we had accumulated, and eating supper from trays on our laps. We had our own mini cinema! Family weddings, Christmases, birthdays, and various stages of my sister’s and my growing – up years were all chronicled in my dad’s handwriting on the big box of slides.
As often happens, time moves on and the slides were left in the loft as new and more modern cameras provided us with more up-to-date methods of taking and storing pictures. Recently though, I came across the box again and spent several hours looking through the pictures on a view-finder I bought online. The slides had become very jumbled over the years and the selection was very random and hopped from year to year. My interest was piqued and soon I found an App that enabled me to edit my slides and see the pictures more clearly. My past opened up before me and days long forgotten came back into view.
For a while, I felt quite sad. I thought about time passing. I mourned days and people long gone. I wished I could remember all the sunny days of my childhood. I wish I knew where some of the friends were that I had lost touch with. I wished I had said ‘thank you’ more and noticed all the kind actions of my grandparents and older friends who called and were kind. But of course, we can’t remember everything that has gone before us. However, I can see myself standing under a sunny sky as a small girl. I can see our gardener standing with my mother and me, resting his hand on my shoulder. I remember him now as a kind and lovely man and his name with Mr Leaves….a wonderful name for a gardener! Some days and loved ones may be long gone, but even if we don’t know it, good memories and sunny, ordinary but nevertheless special days, stay with us and remain tucked away somewhere in our souls. These days are the ones that nudge us from time to time from our memory banks, the ones that give us feelings of deja vu and the ones that creep up announced and fill us with nostalgia.
Nothing good is ever lost.
Notes From Dove Lane 