Reading Time:  3 – 4 minutes

I have helped move my parents a number of times in the last five years.  I helped sell their house on Waldron Island, WA and move them into the independent living wing of Vickery Towers.  It was necessary to move my father several times after that, to assisted living, then to the memory loss wing, and finally to another facility, Ashley Court,  that provided skilled nursing.  When Mom needed round-the-clock caregiving, we moved her for a year to a larger apartment that included a private room for her caregiver.  When she required skilled nursing we moved her to Lexington Place, where she lived with eight other seniors for 14 months, until she passed away in her own room, in her own bed, this month.

It is truly shocking how much stuff we collect over a lifetime.  With every move, we gave away clothes and furniture and threw out boxes of papers. Before the big move from the Washington home,  I went through barns, sheds, closets, suitcases, boxes, and drawers packing into separate boxes various things that might be enjoyed by various siblings. While Mom did not keep a lot of possessions at her last home at Lexington Place, it has still taken time and attention to go through her remaining possessions.  Only one major task remains: Photos and scrapbooks.In my last post I wrote about “Scrapbooks in the Mind”. I now find myself faced with all the real scrapbooks and photos from both my parents’ lives.  There are about 15 packed boxes waiting for me to do something wise with them.

It is a truly daunting task.  They never threw away family mementos.  It is emotionally difficult to go through the boxes because it brings already raw emotions closer to the surface.  Not only is there the reminder that both my parents are gone,  I am also acutely aware of how little I know about them.  I read someplace that, “Each time a person dies, it is like burning an entire encyclopedia.”

I had vaguely planned a project where Mom and I would go through all the scrapbooks. She could talk about the pictures and I could take notes to attach to the pictures.  Now, I  look at pictures of my mother from high school and college.  Who are those other people with her?  What stories will she never tell me?

My practical mind has considered a number of options for getting the photos into order.

1. Simply mail a few boxes to each sibling and hope they will redistribute the stuff that should be shared.

2. Have one of the siblings go through all the boxes, organize pictures, make copies where appropriate, and send scrapbooks to each of us.  All of us could contribute to the cost of the labor.

3.  Scan everything intoFlickr.comor some other online photo capture application. Create organized albums that can be burned to disk or downloaded.  My siblings are not super techies, but some of their children are.  This could be a paid project for one of them or a paid project for any sibling who wants to take it on and earn some extra money.

4.  Ship all the boxes to a service that will scan everything in and send the photos back to us for indexing.

Right now I like choices three and four the best.  I am a bit wary of putting all the family photos in the hands of strangers.  It is more an emotional thought than a real concern.  I may take on the scanning project myself.  Just not today.

How have you captured family photos after a generation has passed?  Please share your stories and ideas. The best stories will be those where this kind of recording is done while the elders are still alive to enjoy the project.  It is a much heavier task with them participating only as ghosts.  I have few regrets about what I did or did not do for my parents, but I truly regret not capturing their memories with them.

Copyright TheNewElder 2012