I’m going through our boxes of family photos this month. I think it’s time to give my grown daughter her albums of pictures from the moment she breathed her first breath to the day she graduated from high school.
They’re in a bin in my closet, left there for years while she became an adult, and I grew old. From the cute, duck-covered album titled “My First Year” to the practical, brown, generic albums with sticky film pages, they all wait to be reseen and reorganized for the last time by their photographer.
When she was born, the photos began. I took one of her dad holding her for the first time in the hospital. Her grandmother cradled her close for a pic. I remember holding my bulky camera and snapping away from my hospital bed.
A series of “firsts” — as ordinary as any other baby’s, but special because they were hers — kept me busy between diaper changes and cuddles.
First smile. First time rolling over. First anything. These were moments that filled my heart with goofy delight and reinforced my belief in her absolute genius.
No baby was cuter, or smarter, or more worthy of photos than mine. I made sure I kept the camera nearby to capture it all.
Trips to the store to have them developed. Duplicates for Grandma (who may have wondered why she needed five pictures of her granddaughter simply lying inert in her crib at slightly different angles).
In typical mom fashion, I chronicled her entire childhood. From the memorable to the mundane, Andrea’s life is on display on hundreds of squares of glossy paper.
I need to get them out one last time and take a final look.
I opened the first album. A lump of tiny, red baby lying in a white sea of blankets, resting like dough waiting to rise into something more recognizable.
A close-up of a face without guile or concern, looking toward me with fuzzy eyesight and full trust.
A blurry action photo of arms and legs akimbo, wriggling against the carpet as if climbing a ladder to tomorrow.
Andrea grows as I turn the thick pages of the albums. Now other people begin appearing in the pictures — supporting actors sharing the spotlight.
Her dad, the first man she’d ever love, smiles toward the camera as he wrangles his daughter in his arms. His flannel shirt sleeves rub against her pink face, and the photos capture a pattern of warmth he and Andrea would always share.
Grandma and Grandpa, spectacled and slightly rigid, crowd onto the couch for a photo with their granddaughter. They hold her between their bodies in a kind of “Three Bears” posture — Papa and Mama protecting the tiny one with stoic, fierce devotion.
Riding on Daddy’s back. Running in the park. Swinging on swings. Eating spaghetti. No occasion or scene was mundane. All were worthy of the photo I took.
Christmases and birthdays flew by, making me wonder how she grew so quickly, but I have proof of the progression of time in these pictures. She was once small. She was as miraculous as I remember. And she still is.
One thing stood out to me as I placed photos and albums in a box for Andrea to take home: there were very few pictures of me in this chronicle of my daughter’s life.
Would Andrea think I wasn’t there? When she looks at these in the future — maybe to pass on to her own daughter someday — will she wonder why her mother was absent from all these moments?
Oh, my darling daughter. You may not see my face in these photos, but I was there. I was smiling and laughing and loving and trying so hard to give you everything a mom should give.
I was behind the camera. Choosing the moments. Clicking the shutter. Smiling with satisfaction at having captured one memory after another.
These pictures are my love story to you.
And I was there, Andrea. I was there.
