Memories

The other day I stopped by CVS to pick up a couple of photos from one-hour photo. My photo printer stopped working about 4-months ago, and now simply exists as an at-home flight check-in kiosk. and then only when it likes me.

However, I was struck with a very old memory. I remember the days when as a kid, I would go with Mum to Costco. The first thing to the right of the massive garage doors was the photo center. We would rush to the photo stacks and eagerly wait for Mum to turn the gigantic cart down an empty isle and rip open the packaging.

We’d stand on our tip toes as we waited to see which pictures were there. Half of the pictures were blurry, and occasionally Mum would lecture me on why I thought taking a picture of a brick was a good idea. (What can I say, I had a weird photographic eye even at that age.) But we’d ooh and aah over the photos of us as a family, right there in the isle of Costco.

Fast Forward 15-odd years to today. Where my baby sister doesn’t even pause after the shutter goes off, immediately begging “let me see! let me see!” (by the way, The Baby just turned 6!!! Happy Birthday munchkins!) Bad pictures are instantaneously deleted, and there’s plenty of room for pictures of bricks and leaves and my baby sisters dolls.

But the other day at CVS I tossed my photo order into the cart, and walked out of the store without even glancing at them until they went in the mail to my grandmother. She’s 103 and doesn’t own a computer, so we still hand write letters and mail her pictures. (Although, I’m sure if we gave her a chance she’d master the computer and be on facebook in no time. She is super woman after all.)

I’m all about the technological advances we’ve had and love the fact that as I’ve travelled the world my family can travel with me via the world wide web. But there are moments when I miss those days, crowded around a shopping cart - waiting as a family to see what memories were made and captured forever on one incredibly special photograph.