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.