About a month ago, my sister-in-law Chris brought over some old photos she found at her house, most of which were baby/toddler shots of our eldest daughter Elissa.
The image above was one of those shots. It was probably taken in late 1994 when Elissa was less than a year old. Chris laid it out on our kitchen table along with the other photos.
Our youngest, Jack, looked at it and said, "You look so 90s, but Mom doesn't seem to come from any one time."
My round glasses most certainly peg me as a young mid-90s dad, but I would argue that Terry's semi-poofy hair places her solidly in the same era.
Regardless, it struck me how much of a story one photo can tell. I remember this time of life very clearly. I often say it was a "magical" time, and I mean it.
Terry and I were both working full-time, her at Lincoln Electric in the International Engineering Department and me as a sports writer at The News-Herald. She worked days while I worked nights.
That meant we never needed to pay for daycare. I was with Elissa all day, while Terry took the night shift after she got home from work around 5:30.
Oh, we took full advantage of our parents' willingness to host their grandkids whenever the opportunity arose and we wanted to go shopping or get stuff done around the house. But for the most part, Elissa spent her babyhood at home with one or both of us.
Still looking at the photo, Jack asked whether we knew at the time we wanted more kids, or whether we ever thought, "We're good, one is enough."
The answer is that while we didn't know we would have more children, we certainly knew we wanted more. We were still relatively new parents discovering what it meant to raise a tiny human. Every Elissa milestone (rolling over, sitting up, crawling, walking, talking, etc.) was new for us and a cause for pre-Internet private celebration.
I don't know if I'm imagining all of this after the fact, but I remember it as an exciting (if exhausting) time in which the possibilities seemed endless. We were young and had a whole life ahead of us. So many plans, so much anticipation for the future, so much joy in the present.
I see all of that in this picture. I also see a much darker and fuller head of hair on me, and a little baby who, later in life, would prove herself to be smart, funny and talented in many ways.
I see a wife who exhibited so much strength...and still does. A couple of years after this picture was taken, Terry left the full-time workforce to take care of things on the home front. She would never work full time again, but I can tell you she did more good at home than she ever could have done working for a company.
Our second-oldest, Chloe, arrived a little more than a year-and-a-half after this photo, and while the magic never went away, it was often overshadowed by the chaos of having multiple kids.
We would, in time, become more tired, a little more stressed, and undoubtedly more busy than we were when this picture was taken. But we never lost the excitement of the parenting adventure, nor did we ever waver in our love for the children with which God blessed us.
I see all of that and more in this portrait of three very happy people so many years ago.
No comments:
Post a Comment