Thankful Thoughts: Photographs

They are like a treasure to me. It's been only in the last couple of years that I have truly appreciated people who are picture takers. I am so happy for the pictures I have of my Grandparents, my mom and Garrett. Each time I find one that I haven't seen (or don't remember) it's like a little gift--a golden nugget. It doesn't matter if it's blurry or an arm is chopped off or just the back of a head, or the lighting is bad, I still love the picture. It's a little piece of them that I can have when those I love aren't with me. It helps me remember things about them that I had forgotten and brings back the feelings I had when we were together.

My grandma Jones was really good at taking pictures and preserving them. Each of her children have albums full of pictures of themselves and their children. She photographed each of her missions and put them in albums as well. I remember going to her house as a child in the back bedroom where the bookshelves were crammed with albums. My cousins and I would choose a book, sit cross-legged on the floor with the book between us and slowly turn the pages looking for someone we recognized or something we remembered. We saw our parents as children, their pets, the houses they grew up in, the outrageous fashions, a favorite car, exotic places and familiar events captured forever in those books. It's one of my favorite memories of my grandparent's house.

I'm trying to be a better picture taker and memory keeper so years from now I can remember the silly faces Dallin makes when he's mugging for the camera, how Maura's eyebrows pucker when she is mad, or how Adam sticks out his tongue when he is concentrating.

Photographs help me keep those memories and I love them.