Within the past several years, many changes have taken place in our family. Our journey, like that of many other families, has included multiple positive gifts while, unfortunately, dealing with devastatingly life altering blows, as well.
After a visit from our kids college friends over one Christmas break, I decided to rearrange our dining room. This is the room everyone seems to gather when we are all together. Our large dining room table allows for our 'Stewart Family Game Nights' to have several chairs packed around it and I wanted to make extra room for when we needed to add more people to the mix. We can get kind of rowdy and need space when the nights get competitive.
Our hutch moved from one wall to another and, as it did, I realized we had a generous wall that looked incredibly bare. I moved an antique picture of my husband's grandpa and his twin brother to the center of the wall. I had my grandparent's wedding picture along with pictures of my great-grandparents, too. They all seemed to belong together. Our past relatives looking down on us. Our kids joke that these pictures are 'creepy' because they are not pictures they are used to seeing. My husband's grandpa and his twin are clothed in what looks like dresses as per the time period for infant photos. My grandparents and great-grandparents aren't smiling in their photos. We're talking about pictures that are over 100 years old. Definitely a different time but so blessed to have those 'creepy' photos.
Our oldest son, Braxton, said he thought we should make the wall an entire wall of family pictures. I thought that was exactly what we should do!
I see designs of family picture walls online and in magazines from time to time. Some are elaborate and artsy. Beautiful reflections of the family they represent.
Ours is not orchestrated or designed.
It just IS.
It's ended up with my ancestors on one side of the wall and Ed's on the other. The large picture of his grandpa and his twin is in the center of it all, as a focal point.
Bentley and I found the word FAMILY spelled out on individual wooden plaques at a local craft mall and she hung those all across the top of the photos along the wall.
As time passes, I add more pictures. We've been able to get pictures of several of Ed's aunts and uncles. We have a few of his cousins, too. We add a family picture from our family vacation each year. Our kids hospital baby photos are up there among some of our favorites which mark some special time for us.
When a new picture comes along, we always seem to find the perfect place. We let the pictures dictate where they should be hung.
The only other thing on that wall is an antique clock that belonged to my Grandpa and Grandma Belobrajdic. It belongs there among the memories.
I have to admit we do have a few pictures of people that aren't related to us by blood but who are family, nonetheless. After his death nearly two years ago, we added Leo Alfano to our wall. One with him and my son, Brody, as little kids at Brody's birthday party one year; one with Ed and Leo after a soccer banquet (the only picture I have of just those two together); one with Tonia and me with Leo and Brody after their high school graduation; and finally, one of Tonia and Sam with Brody on his 20th birthday. In fact, Filie was by one night and said, "I like how my family made your family picture wall...and I'm not in any!" Guess we'll add Filie to the wall soon, too.
Home is not only the place you spend the most time but it is the place you find comfort and warmth. And love.
Our family wall of pictures represents us...our past and our present.
Time moves on. Pictures give us that lasting grasp on what once was. Our smiles frozen in time. A moment forever saved by a camera. We can look at them, again and again, and feel ourselves lost in the memories.
It is what it is.
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