Life in the (Widow) Hood: Anniversaries

Tomorrow is the 29^th anniversary of the day I got married. The person with whom I am supposed to mark that date is no longer alive, and so it becomes my responsibility alone to remember, celebrate, and mourn what is no longer.

This is true of all the important dates that my husband and children and I amassed during our lives together as a family. I alone remember our children’s birthdays. I alone remember our wedding day. I alone remember the day we bought our house, joined our synagogue, buried our second child.

There’s a power in the many photo albums that my husband, who missed his true calling in the scrapbooking craze, compiled over our almost-25 years together. They each have a label on the spine, indicating the years covered by the pictures inside, the children’s birthday parties that are commemorated, the vacations that we took. You open up the book and can page through the moments captured on film in a way that tells a story. Despite the ease of having all of one’s photos on a phone today, allowing for quick sharing, the digital narrative doesn’t hold the same way. 

Our wedding album, along with the many pictures taken on that beautiful September morning, contains all the cards and notes that accompanied the gifts we received. As do the children’s baby albums, although one of them contains hundreds of sympathy cards. The record of our honeymoon in Greece reminds me that we lost a roll of film along the way, and my husband tried to replace it with postcards telling the story of our week-long drive across Crete.