April 03, 2006
Photographs
My wife and I went to her aunt and uncle's 50th wedding anniversary party on Saturday night. The celebrating couple's granddaughter had masterminded the get together and worked feverishly to bring that celebration to fruition. It wasnt a fancy gala at some banquet hall with expensive food or a band or anything like that. It was held at the couple's daughter's home and was a modest party by all accounts.
Tables were set up in the patio terrace in the back yard with white table cloths and yellow roses in vases throughout. Pink taffetta petals were delicately scattered atop the tables and little gold plastic "50's" lay all over the tables as well. The granddaughter had also convincingly asked her grandmother for all of her old photos for a "class project." Said "class project" consisted of scanning all the old black and whites and putting together a slide show of the couple's lives to be presented during the party for the couple and all of their guest.
The granddaughter also took those images and made small, 2x3 prints of each, which in turn were put into small frames and set atop the tables for the party. It was a beautiful, elegant and rather heartwarming gesture for the celebration of the couple's 50th wedding anniversary.
I meandered around all of the tables and picked up each and every frame, thinking I'd get to see a brief and different glimpse of the lives of this couple that has been married for fifty years. There were about two dozen frames altogether but only a handful of photographs.
If you are Cuban exile, of course, this comes as no surprise. Those dozen or so old sepia and black and white photographs in every Cuban-American household are invaluable. No price tag can be put on them. Most of those old pictures had to be smuggled in. Some had to be sent, one by one, by a family member who remained on the island after you and your family exiled.
And there I was Saturday evening taking in these few beautiful wedding pictures, the bride being led by her dad down the aisle; bride and groom at the altar; a picture of the wedding court; the happily married couple on the beach during their honeymoon, when I realized that I have never seen my parent's wedding photographs.
I've never seen my mom in her wedding gown being led down the aisle by my grandfather. Ive never seen my dad in a tux, proud, happy, standing at the altar waiting for his bride.
And plenty of photos of their wedding were taken. They had a wedding album. They had an enlargment of the bride and groom standing together at the church up on a wall in their home in Cuba. There were photos with the family. Pictures of the honeymoon. An album full of memories of that eventful day.
But that album stayed in Cuba when my parents exiled. Along with most of my sister's baby pictures and all but two or three of mine.
Like the couple celebrating their fiftieth wedding anniversary this past Saturday, my parents left Cuba with nothing but the shirts on their backs and much trepidation. Not a cent to their name, kids in tow leaving a life well known behind and exiling to a country where they did not even understand the language.
Think about that. Look around you. Look at your home and everything you own, all that you have in your home right now, down to that refrigerator full of food or all the photo albums recording you and your family's lives and imagine walking out your front door, children in tow, with whatever clothes you are wearing right now, and never returning again.
Your house, and everything in it that makes it your home, never to be seen again.
And then picture yourself disembarking from an airplane in a foreign land. A land where you dont know the customs, dont know the language or where your next meal is coming from. Youve got your family with you, but you have left everything you have ever worked for in your life behind. And now you must start over from scratch. From the very beginning. Where all you have is your determination and the memory of your old photographs.
Posted by Val Prieto at April 3, 2006 07:29 AM
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Comments
Hearing you. We lost most of the family photographs. I think all the phots we have with luck amount to a giftbox - you know the box where you give a shirt as a gift.
An entire family history lost.
Posted by: La Ventanita ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.babalublog.com/nav-commenters.gif)
at April 3, 2006 09:07 AM
This beautifully captures the essence of why I embarked on my little "Havana5060" blog...because, unlike most exiles, my family had angels back home who instinctively knew the importance of not allowing the real family treasures, the memories and history captured by innumerable images, to be lost - and doubly fortunate we were that most made it through the regime's bureaucratic and postal controls. I hope by sharing our images those who lost theirs will thereby be encouraged to recall the important, loving events in their lives. To remember, is to live again.
Posted by: Alberto-Q at April 3, 2006 09:29 AM
Val,
You keep doing this to me; remembering things that I have taken for granted. We too have photos that have come to us in various forms. I scan the orignals and then put them away to keep them safe. With Photoshop, I remove the old water stains and folds, reprint them and those are the ones that hang on my walls.
Thank your for reminding what a treasure they are.
Posted by: Orlando at April 3, 2006 10:27 AM
A while back I posted about my grandmother, Tati, on cubanamericanpundits.com. One of the things I didn't mention in the post was that my grandmother was the family historian. Since she stayed in Cuba for several years after my mom left, she took it upon herself to send over all of the family photographs, a few at a time. Today we have a great collection of photos going back 100 years thanks to her. Just another way my abuelita came through for us.
Posted by: conductor at April 3, 2006 11:37 AM
Pictures paint a thousand words.Pictures allow us to re-live those special monemts. Pictures allow us to connect. Primo her EYES are all we need. One look into her EYES and we can re-live any stage of our lives, experienced or storied.
Posted by: Ismael at April 3, 2006 04:38 PM
Several years ago, I put together my mother's photos in an album but she's never taken the time to label them. It was not the same with my dad's side of the family.
Posted by: apr_47@yahoo.com at April 4, 2006 12:14 AM
This made me cry and miss the family even more. It is true that we take things for granted. We don't seem to truly understand that things can so easily be taken away, but luckily memories are forever.
I would have loved to see old pictures of the family, which is why I guess I am so obsessed with capturing moments on film, hoping to one day show them to my family.
Posted by: Maura at April 4, 2006 07:01 PM
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