A friend recently shared with me the photo album his mother created shortly before dementia stole her memories. I remember meeting her only once; she gave a me recipe for a sour cream peach cobbler that I have made many times. The first page of the album is a handwritten list of the major milestones in her husband’s life, including his marriage to her in 1915. One of the last photos shows them together after 47 years of marriage. They are smiling and her head is inclined on his shoulder. In the rest of the album, she is mostly present as a reflection. She is represented by the photos she selected, by the people she cared about. She, herself, is not in very many of the pictures. It’s as though you have to catch site of her quickly from the corner of your eye. Or you must be a detective and assemble the clues. For instance there is a clue to the woman behind the album in the arrangement of the photos. She put a photo of her son next to a photo of her husband, with the caption: “John’s first time formal 1969 and Bob’s last time formal 1991.”
When we make albums, they tend to be about the important people and places in our lives–not directly about us. People may make inferences about our loves and our values from what we select to show.
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