Looking At Life through Pictures

So as the scanning project draws down, I have about 300 more negative slides to scan.  This was an added on project to the existing one.  Now many of you may have never heard of a mounted slide, or never had "Slide Parties" in your house.  You know where your parents cover the windows with sheets take all of the pictures from the big wall, and project the pictures on the wall.  Big bowls of popcorn, beverages and life size pictures of people.  I remember this happening as a child at my parent's house, I don't really member a whole lot about it.  For some reason, I remember the sheets on the wall, and the green Tupperware bowl full of popcorn.

I have realized a lot on this project, and yes it will be good to have it done.  When the recipient's of these pictures get their own pictures back, many will be grateful, and will give many thanks.  I however need to be the one to give the thanks.

Imagine your life being only told in pictures, for some of these people that it what I will know.  During this project it has brought many laughs and tears for the family.  Some of the pictures are from a time that we would rather forget about our lives.  The years that teeth were so mangled that all we can see is that kid that was teased, the pictures of the kid in glasses and the knowing how despite the gift of eye sight it brought unwanted banter amongst the siblings, the weight problems, the picture of a kid eating birthday cake remembering that was the first year after their dad passed away.  One would automatically think, "Remove that picture, I hate it", I know for a fact that I have thought myself on my own pictures.  Many of these pictures we may not hate the picture, we actually hate the memory associated with it.  One day in the future we are going to be dead, the stories of your life will diminish as the years go by.  This is life, and as much as we think that we are important and valued through the decades our lives become lost and some what forgotten.
Last night when scanning a slide I had to take a double take of a picture of my father about Nolan's age, and told Nolan, "Nolan look at this picture".  He looked it mouth wide open, and said, "Mom that looks just like me", he couldn't get over it.  I was a little shocked too!  Some of the pictures are of family that I don't remember, or if I do my older memories consist of them being older.  There are many pictures that I can see a resemblance of my cousins kids, my nieces and nephews and myself.  Most of us are going to leave this world poor, sick, and everything else in between.  We aren't going to be famous and through the years our life story will become shorter and shorter.  So instead of deleting that picture of you not looking as pretty as you should, Don't do it.  One day your grandchildrens children might look at it, and notice that you are standing the same way that they stand, or that you got your smile from your grandma's sister.  They won't judge the girl with the bad teeth, the extra pounds, no they will smile like me and think to themselves, "I am just like you", and you will feel that you are connected more to that picture in the negative slide than you ever thought was possible.

Here are some pictures that really stand out to me.

 

Here is my Dad and my brother Lucas around the same age.

 

 

 

 

Now here is my dad

 

Now here is Nolan

 

Nolan is going to remember my dad for as long as he lives.  The next two pictures really hit me hard.  I never got to go know my Grandpa Ludvig Bjerklie, he died before my parent's were born.  I have heard some stories about him, but never really felt a connection until this picture.  Here is my Grandpa Ludvig holding his son Duane at his sons last birthday.  The next one is of my late brother Ryan, Alissa, and Blake.  The resemblance is scary, I have never noticed it any other picture that I have ever seen of Grandpa.  So let this be a lesson for all of us, my Grandfather seen this picture at one time.  He probably felt a lot of pain over the memories of the loss of his son.  He knew that Duane was dying and the picture of last birthday could have been thrown.  I thank you Grandpa for not throwing this picture, over 60 years have passed and I feel a connection so strong to this man.  He looked like my brother that I miss and love very much. 

 

 

 

I leave you with this thought, the next time you look in the mirror ask yourself who you look like.  If you don't know, pull out your pictures.

A year in heaven

Grandma has been in heaven now for a year today.  I dont really now how I feel.  Yes I'm sad, but you know not many people can say that they had their grandma for a month shy of 35 years.  Instead I think of the picture of the four year old little boy that died of cancer, and how his mom got to see him again.  So instead of thinking about all that has happened here this year, I'm going to cry a tear today and then smile many smiles thinking about what may have happened in heaven over the last 365 days.  I sure hope that when your in heaven you can see things that happen on earth, well or at least the things worth seeing. Tonight was one of them!  Man did we have fun.  I met up with Kelly, Emily, Kristen, and Matt at the VFW about 8:30.  They had played bingo and it is a rarity for us to get together in Thief River.  Well they had Karoake, now those that really know me, know that I am tune deaf BAD!  I was shy at first then Matt and I sang, "All The Gold in California", in mechanical terms it "Primed The Pump".  The five of us sang I know at least 20 different songs.  Some all together, and some alone.  Alone meaning Kristen, the vocalist of the group.  We all sang, "Will The Circle Be Unbroken", and it was amazing.  It was something that we all sang from our heart.  Now we weren't drunk and singing foolishly, we sang it not to be proud or boastful.  The words flowed, and our hearts were full of love.  I sure hope Grandma heard it.  Now it was really a one time deal.  Tonight despite the change of events turned out to be a successful one.  Not only did I have an amazing night with my siblings, I feel that I'm not going to focus on today being a date on a calendar that my Grandma died.  I want to make sure that I can always remember the tune of a song that us five sang from our hearts with the final words being, "There is a better home a-waiting, In the sky Lord in the sky".

Is it just me or has anyone ever started a project and during the cusp of it thought to yourself, "What the hell was I thinking?", well that is this project scanning Grandma B's has been just that.  I am not complaining, so I don't want anyone to think that I am.  Looking back over the last month, I think that there was reason that some of the first pictures that I looked at were of my Uncle Duane.  I feel that I needed to see those pictures to begin this journey.  It was something that should not have been taken lightly.  I began the journey seeing the pictures of Duane, and seeing the pictures of Duane's little casket.  I could have stopped too and not picked them back up.  I can't say that the three weeks that I didn't look at the pictures that I did soul searching.  I actually just needed to remove myself from them.  It has been emotional, but man has it been rewarding.  It is draining, I need to walk away.  For those of you including myself that have Facebook know that it can be fun, and sometimes like really what were these people thinking.  Anyway, I can tell you right now that Facebook if any other purpose that it may have has served it to the fullest for me.  Originally these pictures were not meant to be in my possession.  A couple of the sibilings were going to get together and divide them and scan then.  Well days turned into weeks, and years actually.  We are all busy, to get together seems impossible.  So what I have done is create private albums on Facebook for these pictures were only the family that has been selected can view them.  They are all going to get CD's of the pictures, and the originals will be divided up.  These family members are the ones that keep me going, keep my motived to do more.  At one point while scanning these picture there are my cousins, my parent's, my uncles and aunts, siblings, family in Seattle all commenting on pictures at the same time.  They are all going through the same emotion as I am.  They shed tears over a dad they lost too young in life, us Grandchildren feeling a sense of being lost when it comes to looking at picture of a Grandpa that none of them got to know.  Laughter upon laughter when it comes to family birthdays, hair do's that were all the rage back then, looking at a picture of me wearing a dress, then a year later seeing it on my cousin Jami, then a year later seeing it on either Andrea or Megan.  It reminds us of the days when we didn't know we were poor, we thought everyone shared clothes, that everyone always drank milk straight out of a bulk tank, that everyone had a grandma that when it came time to build a teepee went to the Indian Reservation and got a "Real" Indian brought them to Hickory Township and built one.
Now this project has been hard, and isn't even 1/2 done.  But with every phone call and every text it pushs me on an emotional level to keep going.  In life if you have never been emotionally drained, you have never emotional given.
It is going to be a year next week since she has died.  Grandma was in her 90's when she passed away.  I look at the beautiful woman that she was growing up, and the beautiful woman she was when she passed away.  In life she buried a 4 year son.  She buried a husband and was left with young children, and trying to find a way to keep the farm.  She buried another husband, and her "First" grandson who always said that her house was "A little bit his too".  In life we don't know what is going to happen.  Take a good look at this picture of my young grandma.

If Jesus would have told her right after this picture that in her life she will have to bury her first born child because of cancer, in her life she will have to bury her husband when she has 5 children at home and try to find a way to pay the bills, in her life she will have to bury all but 1 sibling, another husband, and her 1st born grandchild that she so much adored.  That money will never be plentiful.  Any person in her right mind would say, "Jesus the loss seems so great, I refuse to have children, to be married because this way my life may seem happy, and not have so much hurt".  That would make sense wouldn't it?

Now take a good look at this picture of Grandma days before she passed away with what was then her newest great grandchild Liam.

What the first picture doesn't say is that yes you will feel hurt, you will feel pain, your loss will be great.  However in the end your reward will be worth it.  You will have 6 children that will be proud to call you their mom, you will have 15 grandchildren, you will have more than 19 great grandchildren.  Your name will no longer be Clara, it will be Grandma B, Mom, Ma or even Grandma Corella.  Your house will have a revolving door for those looking for an ice cream cone, sugar cookie, donut, coffee, and pop from the back bedroom, which actually turned out to be your closet.  That your grandchildren will tell stories to their children, and that most importantly you will leave this world loved by more people that you can even imagine.  Now that doesn't seem so bad now doesn't it.  She wasn't perfect, she made mistakes, we all do.  But in the end God gave her a life that wasn't easy, but it wasn't too darn bad either.

My Great Uncle

Today I started going through pictures again.  I didn't think that it would be so emotionally exhausting.  After the last post about my uncle Duane, I put them down and couldn't look at them again.  They have been in my living room now for a couple of weeks and this afternoon I started with them again.  This time there really isn't words to describe the feeling that I have.  Grandma B had thousands of pictures.  Many of them were given to her, and many of them were taken.  It is funny how a second in time recorded in a photograph can bring back so many memories.  It can bring back a sound, a feeling of jealousy seeing a shirt that Kelly had that I wanted, a sense of loss, laughter, more laughter, and a few phone calls later sharing your experience.  I found a picture of Johnny and Sophie Nelson, they were our neighbors growing up.  They didn't have kids, and when we got to go there it was a big deal.  I seen their picture, and it reminded me of my childhood prayer.  At the end of every nighttime prayer I would say, "God Bless everyone in the world, even Johnny Nelson".  Or pictures of Joni and Rickys old house and how Kelly and I ate too many vitamins and got the spanking of our life.  Now I have looked at hundreds of pictures today, after a while you put in the correct pile and go on.  Well there was a picture of what looked like my Great Uncle Ernest, the only living sibling of my Grandma B.  He looked to be about 20 and the first one is of him and two spotted fawns and he is feeding them with a bottle.  The next one is of him and a deer on its hind legs and he is feeding the deer with a bottle.  For some reason the picture stayed in my mind all day.  So tonight I did something that I have never did.  I called up Ernest and told him what I was doing and told him that I found a picture of him and a deer, immediately he says, "Is it the one of me and a deer on its hind legs", I said "yes", he goes with a voice on a verge of tears, "I've always wondered throughout the years what happened to that picture".  I told him that he would get it within a week or so, what he doesn't know is that I am going to enlarge it for him.  So I asked him to tell me the story behind the deer.  He told me that the year was 1941 and Bert Good found these two baby fawns on the reservation.  He told me that they figure that the mother had gotten shot.  He brought the deer to Ernest and Ernest raised them for a couple of years.  He said that he would pound on the tub and no matter where the deer were they would come running.  Ernest was so gracious and thanked me multiple times.  I didn't call him to gloat that I had this photo.  For all I knew he had a copy, I wanted to know the story.  What I learned afterwards that yes going through these pictures has brought up a lot of emotions for me good and bad.  Although these pictures aren't all about me and my feelings.  Ernest is a man that has lost his parents in life, and all of his siblings.  Even though he is old his pain is no less in the loss of a brother or sister than mine is.  So in a few short days this picture will go back to it's owner, where it will bring back memories from years before where all he had to do is pound on a drum and two deer would coming running because that meant Ernest was there to feed them.