To the left; a photo of my dad before his reductive eye surgery. To the right; a young boy with his father's eyes. These snapshots have both existed in the same collection of family photos for right near thirty years and not until Saturday night can I ever remember looking at them side by side. As Miranda and I sat with my parents in their living room, thumbing through these and a box of assorted Rockey memories from the past fifty years, the four of us laughed ourselves silly. Ridiculous outfits, outrageous hair and naked babies all make for some good ol' family fun.As the evening came to a close, Miranda and I thanked my folks for a fun night and headed for the door. That's when I noticed my large wooden crate of records resting in the corner of the entryway. My parents have been generous enough to allow Miranda and I to store many of our possessions in their basement for safekeeping while my cousin's family is staying with us. Unfortunately, as irony would have it, my parent's basement flooded about three weeks ago. I'm not just talking saturated carpets, but inches of standing water. My dad single-handedly relocated all of our things to the upstairs as soon as they'd discovered the flooding. I had been over to their house later that night and had neglected the opportunity to separate all of the albums thus allowing them to dry. Now, three weeks later, as I knelt down to examine my precious collection of vinyl, I discovered that moisture had bred mildew binding the faces of the album covers together. How could I let this happen? I was angry. I was mostly angry at myself for not caring for them before or after the great flood had claimed part of their beauty. I was quiet the entire silent ride home.
I woke up this morning thinking of a couple of things. First, that all of those family photos could just as easily succumb to the same elements which claimed the album covers were they to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. What an even greater tragedy that would be. That's the reality though. All of it, as precious and priceless as it may be, is fleeting. Some of it passing more quickly than the rest, but surely enough all returning to dust. Second, we can tell ourselves that it's those memories we can never lose, yet most of my grandfather's memories from the past fifty years seem to have slipped from his hold. Everything is slowly buckling beneath the weight of mortality. Surely there must be more to this life than dust collecting dust.
