Pictures That Matter

 

I was looking at all the old pictures I have stored on my computer this afternoon.  They brought back many fond memories of times and events and people, but especially of people.  I had gone through many hundreds of the pictures when I suddenly realized that I was skipping all the pictures of things and places.

The times spent in Washington, D.C., national parks, and traveling to distant sites, I was ignoring.  None of those pictures mattered, but only the very few I had of the people who accompanied me.  How I wish I had taken more pictures of those people!  In the pictures, I saw friends of many years, and the things we did together, and old friends --- many of whom I could not recall the names of!  Oh, but I remembered their smiles and their laughter.  The sounds came right out of the pictures into my brain.

I loved the pictures I had of the sisters who cared for the retarded (that was the word we used then) young girls.  They showed so much love there.  And, I had pictures of the night I invited them to a fundraising dinner for another charity.  Their tables roared with laughter that night, and when the band struck up, they were all dancing, even if alone.  “We’ve never been out to dinner like this,” I recall them saying.  I treasure those pictures.  Our Lady of Providence eventually closed, and the girls were given other caregivers.  But I’ll never forget the time I took two of the sisters to a University of Michigan football game.  Sitting in the stands in their long black robes, I noticed the cheers around us included no cursing --- Oh, how I wish I had pictures of that day.

I didn’t delete any pictures as I went through them this afternoon, but I realized all the pictures of sunsets, monuments, the flowers and garden in my back yard, and al the unusual sights I caught in the camera’s lens, none of them were important to me.  If we take pictures to remember, I now think we ONLY should take pictures of people.  You will someday see that they are the only important memories in your life.  They helped make you who you are today, and gave you a foundation for who you will be tomorrow, and --- if you chose people wisely --- for all eternity.

Pictures of them, are pictures that matter.

- - - - - - - - - -

These thoughts remind me of a thing I’ve written before:  tell the people that you love that you love them.  I know a number of people who regretted not telling a loved one those words ---- after the loved one had died.  I was blessed to have that sincere conversation with my dad, then my mom, before they died.  The words shouldn’t be a casual “hey, I love you,” forgotten a minute later.  Sit down next to your loved one, hold their hand, say: “You know, I was thinking about the time …”  Then tell the story, and at the end stop, look sincerely into their eyes, and then say: “You know, I love you.” And let it sink in.  It will be something your loved one may recall on their deathbed, or you on yours.  Don’t regret not saying those words, when it is too late.  Get on a plane and fly across the country if you have to (as someone I know did), but if you haven’t recently said those words to a loved one, do it.

And another Person you should say those words to is in the Adoration Chapel.  Don’t leave those words unsaid either; “well, He’s God and He knows those things."  We’re humans, we speak.  A few months ago, I wrote how I took a dying non-Catholic to the Chapel (at her request).  And after an hour of silent prayer, she came out bawling: “I can’t believe how much He loves me.”  And now, I trust, she is at home in His house, living in that love.  I know saying and hearing those words of love were very important to her.

Don’t let words of love go unsaid.  Put a face in the picture that you’ll never forget.

- - - - - - - - -

And one more, very personal, thing:  I was just coming home from the Adoration Chapel this Saturday night, and when I turned on the car engine, I heard the local Catholic radio station.  I immediately heard the voices of young women, one after another, slowing making their final vows to the Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist religious order.  There were perhaps a dozen of them, and one had an Irish last name, and one was a Polish -ski, that made me smile.  But their simple vowing of poverty, chastity and obedience, out of the love of Jesus, one after the other was awesome to hear.  And yes, I cried from happiness as I drove home.  Hearing a such a commitment of love does that.  I would not be at all be surprised if there were tears in heaven also.