Memories remain after old photographs are gone

My second wife died of cancer in '07. We have no kids between us, but her son and his family are still close to me as well as my two kids and their families. I'm "Grandpa" to all. My ex-wife and I are still close as friends. My problem is trying to go through several boxes and albums of old family photos from way back before digital. Besides the painful memory aspect, I'm having severe guilt feelings about wanting to dispose of all but the most sentimental of photos. I've asked family members but they have all the pictures they want. I would appreciate your thoughts on getting rid of old memories. Digitalizing would be a monumental (and expensive) task.

-- B.W., Las Vegas

It says a lot, I think, that your stepson and his family are still close to you. It speaks highly of you, and of the quality of the relationship you forged with your wife. Blood is often thicker than water, but not always. In healthy families, a son's ultimate wish for his mother would be her happiness. The boy loves you, yes -- and he loves the way you loved his mother. His remaining presence in your life is tribute, indeed.

And you have forged a friendship with your ex-wife -- the mother of your children. If you follow my column, you know my prejudice here: While many divorced partners do finally relinquish the pain and anger, while many do finally extend peace and a wish for the other's happiness, I find real filial friendship to be an uncommon outcome for divorced partners. Again, a tribute to you both.

But you are struggling with the photographs.

Painful memories? Do you mean that some of the photos remind you of regrets? Or do you mean that some of the photos remind you of injuries done to you by others? More likely you mean the obvious: the pain of nostalgia, the pathos that always accompanies even our most sublime contemplation of the past, the reminder that all love comes with the same price tag -- grief.

Love and grief: Beautiful, inseparable, breathtaking dance partners. Always. If that's the pain to which you refer in your "painful memories," I would no more take it away from you than I would steal bags of gold from your vault. For this pain is holy. Worth so much more than gold. Nothing is more profoundly human. Yet another tribute to you.

Guilt over disposing of photos? You didn't know my grandmother. Sometimes, I think she spent more time documenting my life in photo essay than actually being with me. Ironic, yes, that in our near obsessive efforts to "capture the moment" on film, we sometimes run the risk of missing the moment. We're not relating; we're filming. I often wonder about the parents who never really attend their child's second birthday party; rather, they spend the entire time spying on the birthday from behind a video camera.

I'm saying that culling photos is a regular and quite necessary chore on the maternal side of my bloodline. And I have no doubt that, were my grandmother still alive, she'd get out her camera and take a picture of me sitting at the table sorting through photographs! "Here's a nice shot of Steven trying to decide which photographs to throw away ..." Aargh!

B.W., ask yourself what people did with memories before the evolution of photography. Somewhere around the time of the Civil War, our life narratives became less and less often delivered to our ears by language, and more and more often delivered to our eyes by photographs. When I was a boy, "Open me first!" was the television advertising campaign for Kodak cameras in the days leading up to Christmas. The message was clear: If you didn't take pictures, you would never be entirely sure that Christmas ever happened.

Which, of course, is hogwash.

Don't get me wrong. I love my photographs. If my house caught fire and everyone was safely out, my pictures would be among my first priorities to rescue. That and my guitar. But, still, documentaries and memories are ultimately two different things. Meaning doesn't come to us through documentaries, but through narratives. Stories. Documentaries bring us facts. Chronology. Narratives deliver meaning.

B.W., you're not getting rid of old memories. What you are doing is editing the documentary. And a well-edited documentary nourishes memory, gives memory a place to thrive, the same way pruning cluttered branches from my oleanders provides space, air and light to ensure healthy growth.

Originally published in View News, June 9, 2009.