It sits on my dresser: an eight by ten in a pretty gold frame, a daily reminder of how it began.
Here is myself: a months old baby in my mother’s lap, facing forward, arms waving, a fancy white dress with short puff sleeves, scrawny legs, little white booties.
Here is my mother: just eighteen, a sleeveless blouse, a patchwork skirt she made herself, sitting in a chair, her arms around me, her hands relaxed as they rest on my lap, her body curled slightly toward me, a sweet smile on her peaceful face as she gazes down at me.
Here is my father: just nineteen, a button down shirt, black-framed glasses, kneeling on the floor, leaning on the arm of my mother’s chair, his hands in tight fists, his face solemn, worried, lonely perhaps, staring at me as if I’m something that might explode.
At this moment, my mother has eyes only for me. Her magical gaze defines a space from which my father seems to be excluded. He’s left alone, the one who must finish school, work two jobs, endure his mother’s endless scorn. He’s lost so much so soon, and will punish me for this the rest of his life.
But in the moment after this photo was taken, I know my mother turns to him. I know their eyes meet, they feel their linkage, their amazement at this thing they’ve done, their determination to keep on going, to shut out the judging parents, aunts and uncles. As my mother’s gaze shifts, I’m the one left alone. I’m not, after all, her first love.
My father needn’t have worried, she would always be his, through six children, apartments and houses, lean years and years of abundance, the decades of her illness, her long recovery, his slow decline.
Every day, in my mind, I change the photo, never giving up: I move the three of us to a couch and seat my father beside my mother. I gently unclench his fists and put one of his arms around her shoulders. I stretch out his other arm until he holds one of my hands. I curve his lips into a grin. I tell him: it will be OK.
My mother watches, nods. She returns her gaze to my baby self, but shifts one of her hands so that it rests on top of my father’s, the one holding mine. She knows she has enough love for both of us. I hope my father finally knows it too.
Here is Karen: seeing deeply into this early photograph of your infant self with your parents, then imagining a breath later, an eloquent movement of your parents toward each other, in a shift that is both healing and fractured for the family. And now, decades later, a daily practice of revisioning the photo yet again, in a way that has deeper healing and connection for all of you.
So much movement and evolution within one frame.
It’s amazing how powerful it has been for me to reimagine this photograph, even though I have no memory of the day it was taken.
I’m struggling to find the adjective I want to describe my feeling after reading this—it’s tragic and beautiful and heartbreaking and hopeful all at the same time. Evocative? Compelling? All of the above.