photography – Page 7 – Hot Dogs and Marmalade

The word prompt was “graceful.”

I debated about using photos of my children in sports.

Swimming, tennis, soccer, and diving all have their graceful moments.

Aviary Photo_130563787939035300 — graceful kick?

I also have little ballerina pictures. Ballerinas are the embodiment of grace.

The very last first time ballet recital for Laurel -- which also turned out to be the very last ballet recital for Laurel. — Mine is the one trying to curtsey.

But I knew immediately which photo spoke grace to me. The trouble was finding it.

It was a picture of my father taking care of my mother.

He visited her every day. Twice a day. He fed her. He pushed her wheelchair on walks.

5501_10152261695866043_678688786_n — or even this one

This was after my brother passed away. He went to tell her the news that her oldest child had died of a heart attack. Because of her dementia, she couldn’t understand, and he had to repeat the painful words over and over. It broke my heart. His grief was doubled because she was unable to share it.

But her bore it.

The graceful picture I thought of was this one. It may not be the best picture, but it was a special moment.

My mother was in the hospital and my father brushed her hair for her.

Mothers brush other people’s hair all the time — sometimes even adding a little spit to do the trick. Of course, I never did that — added spit, I mean.

But this was new territory for my father. He was a little clumsy doing it. But he wanted her to be cared for, and he wanted to be the one to do it.

So he did the best he could to brush her wayward hair into place.

And it was an act that was full, very full, of grace.

Aviary Photo_130752467502654336 — My mother must have taken this picture — 1965?

I thought I had a large family when I was growing up.

My parents had five children — a nice, symmetrical boy-girl-boy-girl-boy.

Then I met my husband. He was the second of thirteen. As if that wasn’t enough, his cousin also came to live with them when her mother passed away, so really there were fourteen children in the family. And one bathroom.

Big is a relative term. My family was not big in comparison with Bud’s.

Bud and I have eight children — somewhere in between mine and his. Not that we planned it. We never sat down and said, “I grew up in a family of five kids. You grew up in a family of thirteen. Let’s split the difference.”

That would have been silly.

That would also have been nine.

We are just blessed. So very blessed.

When I saw on Cee’s Photography blog a challenge about Big and Small, of course I thought of family.

Really — that’s pretty much what I think about 90% of the time. Family will never be an overworked topic for me.

In particular, I thought of this photograph — my youngest and my oldest sons.