FAMILY PHOTOS
My parents only took photographs on special occasions – weddings, baptisms, visits from distant cousins, and holidays.
Each year, somewhere in England that wasn’t home, we posed around our suitcase-piled car: Mum, my brothers, and me, while Dad set the timer before running to his allotted space. Smile, wait-for-it, click.
Until one year he didn’t run fast enough and the photo was only of five. He wouldn't take another.
A month later he left us.
When Mum died I inherited the family albums and went through them. She’d cut him out of every photo. Then I felt he’d really gone.
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Thanks to Roger Bultot's photo - I like your mirror, Roger - you have a here story about an old-fashioned kind of self-portrait, the kind that my grandchildren wouldn't recognise. Neither would my grandparents, whose photographs would have been even rarer, taken in studios in stiff sepia poses. Such is progress. Today I bought a smart TV which my smart grandson had to set up for me!
To read other stories from Friday Fictioneers, follow the link from https://rochellewisoff.com/
And if you'd like to read a longer story, I have a 500 word one on @visual_verse this month.
Dad's reaction to a simple failure was a little extreme. I wonder why he reacted like that.
ReplyDeleteI think he had other reasons for leaving!
Deletei don't understand why mum would do that. i guess she had her reasons.
ReplyDeleteGuess she was really pissed off with him!
Deletevery sad tale...
ReplyDeleteVery ßad.
DeleteI guess things had gone on that the kids were never aware of.
ReplyDeleteProbably - pity they couldn't stay hidden till the kids had grown up!
DeleteThe separation of parents is a very confusing time for kids. I liked the perspective of the child. Later on, she'll piece it all together. Nicely done!
ReplyDeleteIt's sad that the mother felt it necessary to cut her husband out completely.
DeleteYou told the confusion of the child so well. Cutting out of pictures wasn't rare back then I think, divorces were messy.
ReplyDeleteDivorce is always messy, however careful you are!
DeleteIt always breaks my heart to read how people cut other faces out of pictures in anger. So sad for the next generation trying to capture a piece of their past.
ReplyDeleteSomething I would never do.
DeleteWhen you said he left a month later I was thinking he passed away and they would be sorrowful he hadn't made it into that last pic. Ideal is rarely the case though and the reality is usually more harsh. Dad may have had good reasons to leave. Kids always pay the price for the sins/flaws of their parents.
ReplyDeleteDifficult to get every nuance of meaning into a hundred words!
DeleteGosh, he left and then Mom cut out his image in every photo. Talk about cutting him from their life. I did initially think he died but reading that makes it a conscious choice. I wonder if cutting him out of the photos helped her forget him or just misplace the anger?
ReplyDeleteThinking of that song from South Pacific, 'I'm gonna wash that man right out of my hair!'
Delete