For a couple of months now I've been going through every box, envelope, album, etc. of memorabilia and although progress has been made, there is still a mountain of work to be done. I am, after all, moving to Santa Fe in July. At some point it would be nice to have everything organized and ready to ship to New Mexico or give away. July isn't as far away as I pretend that it is.
In the meantime, I'm so grateful that my parents kept their legacy in this way.
This photograph was taken in 1925. It shows my mom's 8th grade graduation class from St. Benedict's School in Carrolltown, Pennsylvania. Mom, whose name was Grace Kelly, must have been having a bad day...she's the scowling short girl in the middle row, center. This is the only photograph I have of her - and there are hundreds - where she isn't smiling or at least has a spark in her eyes.
What I'd give to know what her state of mind was at that moment. Was she excited to have her picture taken with her classmates? (Apparently not.) Was she looking forward to high school? Did she have any thoughts about her future? Did she know she would attend nursing school and then forsake that dream to become a mother of eight? Did she ever suspect that her youngest child would stare at this photograph eighty five years later and pose so many unanswerable questions?
Of course she didn't. Maybe she was just having a bad hair day.
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There are so many questions we'd ask, aren't there? What were you thinking? Were you having fun? Why did you pick that dress? Did you think you looked cool? (I've morphed over into memories of some of my mom's photos!) Not to mention all the questions about the medical history -- theirs and the ones before them... Oh, if I had another day with either of them, would I ask all those questions -- or just hold them?
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