The Forgotten

As I stood at the back of the only home I had ever known the familiar voice of my father said "you can take them if you want them, I'm just throwing them out!"  My eyes flooded with tears as I stood looking at the 2 big black garbage bags full of the images from my entire life sitting beneath the large garbage can.  I couldn't do it, I did not want the extra burden of going through them all and intensifying my heartbreak.  I replied, " I don't want them, if you don't want them why would I want them?"  Of course I said that out of anger after being lectured about not commenting on the picture of his new girlfriend hanging over the fireplace mantle.  A woman he had never bothered to tell me about in letters or cards.  A woman that if he married I would not be invited to the wedding, he stated clearly.


I appreciated the fact that he at least offered them to me, despite the cruelty that this act seemed to inflict upon me.  I let a little pride get in the way with my response, but I also couldn't handle the ritual of going through them all.   I can understand, in part, why he wanted to throw out all of the photos from his previous life, his previous family.  When we are angered and hurt we often are impulsive, and no doubt his heart was aching.  Even though I understood him on some level, it was his level of disrespect for me that has caused my avoidance.  I was hurt too, and there was really no understanding toward me at all.


The love and understanding that I had experienced with my father was special and great at times, but it was usually very fragile, very conditional.  It was like an egg that would break at a drop.  No matter how many times I tried building a parachute for that egg so it could gently land without breaking, the more it just reminded me of the engineering experiment in high school called the "egg drop",  I was never successful at. The goal is to drop an egg from a certain height without breaking it.  You could wrap it up in tissue, paper, tape, build a parachute to slow the drop.  Again, I never seemed to get that experiment quite right, nor was I successful in keeping that love from breaking.

I thought a part of my childhood had been lost forever.  I of course had some regret about not taking the pieces of my childhood. Those pictures, although silent, told treasured stories and seemed to have a screaming voice as they haunted me on many occassions. Upon having a conversation at work about safes and which ones were the best, and what we would put in them, I found that I had to excuse myself from the conversation when the topic of pictures surfaced.  The rush of memories swirled around and emotions surfaced that I couldn't control for at least 10 minutes.  This is when I retreated to the bathroom for a good cry.  I couldn't help it, I felt guilty and I felt the heaviness of a great loss.  Not only that, but I felt that I was being erased, and forgotten.  I could understand his actions partly, but why me?  I didn't do anything, but love.  Why did he want to forget me?  Maybe I will never totally understand.

Well, the last few years have unfolded a miracle before me.  During a visit to my sister's house we went through some of her scrap books and I discovered that she had so many pictures from our childhood.  She had taken some from my dad years earlier.  At both of our weddings we asked our parents for pictures to make an album or slideshow.  That is when I remembered I had some too, not many, but some.  Our collection of pictures told the same stories as the lost ones.  It was like Heavenly Father knew all of this would happen and had carefully preserved some of our childhood.  It was like Heavenly Father was assuring me that we were not forgotten.

I couldn't help but make the comparison to another story.  A story about the restoration of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.  When Joseph Smith was translating the Book of Mormon he had help from a neighbor and friend, Martin Harris.  Martin asked Joseph if he could take 116 pages of the manuscript to show his family.  Joseph prayed and asked the Lord if he could give them to Martin.  The Lord said NO, not once, but twice.  The third time the Lord said he could take them if he promised to only show certain members of his family.  Martin promised and took the pages.  He broke his promise and showed some friends.  When Joseph asked for the manuscript to be returned Martin could not find it, it was lost.  The gift of translating the plates was taken from Joseph for a time, as he repented. It was given back to him later.

The Lord told Joseph that the record that was lost was also recorded later in the gold plates.  Heavenly Father knew it would happen so that small record was carefully preserved anciently before the plates were given to Joseph Smith.  That record had 2 copies, the original, which is said to be the book of Lehi which was the lost manuscript and the copy that was recorded later in the plates.  Other prophets of God had recorded the same stories that were in the lost record.  Such a MIRACLE!

I cherish these pictures that
I do have, but perhaps there is another tender mercy.  This miracle is another way of storing records, my mind.  I seem to have been blessed with a good memory.  I can recall many memories from long ago and remember them like they happened yesterday.  Maybe this is one reason I love to take pictures myself, I have developed a love for photography.

Sometimes things can get lost through no fault of our own or through mistakes that we make.
Sometimes these things can be recovered through miracles that we don't even realize.  The most important thing here, though, is that we will never be forgotten. Heavenly Father will NEVER forget any of us.  It is up to us to see the miracles He weaves into our lives.

It is important to always remember the past, bad past, for if we forget we may be doomed to repeat it.  If we forget the good past we may forget to repeat it.  Just REMEBER, don't FORGET!