Plum Stones

[poliphilo]

I've spent much of the past four days looking at pictures of the dead. Taken before they were dead, I hasten to add. Taken when they were lying in hammocks or walking down streets (there used to be a whole brotherhood of street photographers who earned a living lurking about on busy highways snapping faces in the crowd- unthinkable these days when your mobile phone doubles as a camera) or paddling in the ocean or just watching the birdie.
I was looking for messages. I received a few.

I learned:

That my great great grandfather was an elegant man,
That the fashions of the 1920s were extremely cool; bring back the cloche hat!
That my grandfather, grandmother and father formed an extremely close and loving family unit.
That my father was an unbearably cute little boy,
That I am related to some people by the name of Huggins.

And...?

It's a one way conversation. My grandfather spent months in Bogota- but I can't ask him why. His leather cowboy trousers are memorialized but not the very important work he must have been doing down there. What does it matter now that he traveled to Moscow selling tractors to Stalin or once showed Princess Margaret round an exhibit of earth-moving equipment?

All gone.

I can deal out his life like a hand of cards. I can flip through it in seconds.

Thirteen, fourteen- Maids a courting;
fifteen, sixteen- maids in the kitchen;
seventeen, eighteen- maids in waiting;
nineteen, twenty- My plate's empty.

Comments

[dakegra.livejournal.com]

I was thinking about this recently. I remember vividly seeing a photo of my dad when he was on National Service, in Egypt. Sat outside a tent as the sun set.

I asked my mam if she had the photo, but she said she didn't know which one I meant. I've only got one photo of my dad, one he took for his passport.

Actually, it must have been for the passport he needed to go on his holiday to Austria with mam, where he had a heart attack and died.

I'm not sure I'll ever look at that little square of photo in the same way ever again.

[besideserato.livejournal.com]

I love your stories. They are so beautiful, so thought provoking!

[morrison-maiden.livejournal.com]

That the fashions of the 1920s were extremely cool; bring back the cloche hat!
Hear hear!! Actually, while watching a silent Garbo movie, I said to my dad that I find it funny how the women from the "gutter" seem to be better dressed than those in society :-X

I love old photos, but particularly the ones of my family. My paternal grandfather was very elegant; I have some photos of him on the computer, I'll have to post them. He looked a bit like a mix of William Holden and Cary Grant ^_^