I keep looking at the photo I posted of my Grandmother in yesterday’s blog. I am trying to remember how old she is in that photo… maybe 16 or 17? My aunt would know, and I need to call her and ask.

I know that this photo is the only one we have of Grandma from when she was a young girl.

The only one.

I think about my own Little One and the many, many photos we have of her. A digital camera makes that all so easy…almost too easy… relatives come up to her and take photo after photo, (and yes, I do the same…) and I am of course pleased that they are interested in her, at the same time, sometimes, I am actually yearning for a time when photos meant something more. Does that seem odd? I think of this photo of my grandmother as a young girl… it is the only one we have…and we treasure it deeply.

In my own family growing up, we would take a couple of photos a month. In my Grandma’s days, she hardly had any photos of herself, and most all of her belongings, the family’s precious possessions, were all left behind during the forced marches out of their village in Western Armenia.

What did she leave behind?

I know she carried her tattered Bible with her.

What did she leave behind as she left her home, a little four or five year old girl, with her younger brother, older sister and mom? What was she thinking as they began that march out of the village and into the desert…to a destination they did not even know. They just knew they had to go.

I look at that photo, at her eyes, I wonder what stories lie behind those eyes… I think of her getting dressed up and going to get her photo taken…

I want her to come alive from this photo, and I want to talk to her and ask her questions and laugh with her and dance with her. And mostly I want to sing with her. I want to hear her sing. I really want to hear her sing.

I treasure this photo so much.

Tags: Armenian Genocide, Bible, grandmother, Old photos, Western Armenia