The date isn’t marked on the back of this photograph but I’m guessing this was taken during the autumn of my eighth year, sitting in our backyard with my grandfather. The girl in this photograph had already been through a nasty divorce and custody battle, her mother remarrying, her father signing away his rights, been legally adopted by her stepfather and forced to change her last name, had a new baby sister. The girl in this photograph was already battling anxiety. She was never quite sure where she fit in or if she fit in, and already had deep issues with self-confidence and trust. At eight this girl was profoundly sad and lonely. She imagined herself an orphan that would be magically discovered by some charming little family that wanted her and loved her. So they took her home and she fell into the easy rhythms of their life, found comfort in a cottage full of books and overstuffed chairs perfect for curling up in with a good book. These were the thoughts that filled that girl’s diary.

I found this picture in middle school. It was during Christmas break. The rest of the family had gone out shopping. I was looking for a photograph of my dad, I wanted to know what he looked like, wanted to see if there was any resemblance. There wasn’t a single photograph of him or of our life before the stepdad came into the picture. I remember thinking about how sad it was to not talk about before, to have no photographs, as if it all had never happened, as if he had never been. If that were the case then what was I still doing there?

I found this photograph and one other of me and grandfather taken that same day. I took them and hid them in my room. My grandparents had been the one constant in my life, the people I felt safest with. My grandfather and I had a special bond – I loved staying with them, being treated to a milkshake in the evening, dancing to records with my grandfather, him settling into his favorite chair in the evening and saying, “Come on long legs.” I’d run over and curl up in his lap immediately feeling safe and loved. And my grandmother never minded me sitting on the side of the tub watching as she put on her makeup and fixed her hair. She let me walk around in her heels and dig through her jewelry and watched me parade around her room bedecked in her finery, pretending to be someone other, someone fabulous. It was the moments with my grandparents that when strung together were just enough to keep me afloat no matter what I was dealing with at home.

When I left home at eighteen I framed this photograph and have had it with me ever since. It’s been packed in my bag for ski trips to Colorado, camping trips to Taos, Chapel Hill, Los Angeles, Austin, Sturgis, Stowe, it’s taken the ferry across Lake Champlain from Vermont to New York, Tucson, road tripped to Lake Tahoe, Lake Powell, Jackson Hole, Memphis, Destin, Mexico a few times, back and forth across the Atlantic several times, it moved with me to New Orleans, then to Montreal, it’s been all over the Maritimes (where I held it up while overlooking the Bay of Fundy, the Gulf of St. Lawrence, the Atlantic Ocean for my grandfather to see what his ancestors may have seen), and now it sits on my bookcase where I see it every day.

The difference is that I now have a daughter the age I was when that photograph was taken. I look at that photograph now through a mother’s eyes. I see the sadness of that girl and I wonder what makes a woman become the kind of mother that sees such sadness in her child and ignores it. I look at that photograph and I know that my daughter’s story isn’t mine. She doesn’t live in the nicest of houses or have every electronic gadget and game known to man; however, she is the happiest eight year old I know. She loves and is loved deeply. We call her the red bean and sometimes the little mama. She is wickedly funny and bright and when she laughs it’s deafening. Every time I hear that loud laugh pour out of that long, skinny girl I say a little prayer of thanks. Thankful to have made it through and turned all that sadness and anger into something good. Thankful to be the kind of mom I always dreamed of having, thankful for a daughter that confides her secrets in me, and thankful to be the person she turns to when she needs comforting.

ps: more unwrapping over at emily’s.

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