My sister-in-law just emailed the pictures she had taken during our recent trip to visit with extended family members. When I saw the email, my stomach dropped a bit. She said she had picked her 15 favorite from the week and hoped we would all enjoy them as much as she did. With each word I read, I could feel my breath becoming more and more shallow. I just wanted to skip this part, get on to the next part. See if it really did happen and what our faces looked like when it did.
I skimmed over the pictures and then settled on the one I had been most afraid of. The family picture. The one that was meant to show all of us: Grandpa, Grandma, Aunt Sarah, Uncle Jared, cousins Elliot and Oliver, Aunt Jenny, Uncle Josh, me, my husband, our daughter, and our son. It was meant to show all of us. But instead it was missing one of us. It was missing our boy.
It really did happen. And we looked like liars. Everyone was smiling huge in the picture. Our girl was in my arms, my husband was next to me... we were mixed in with everyone. A tangled web of family.
We all appeared quite normal.
What you can't see in the picture is our son, hiding behind a tree that wasn't even close to the rest of us. He had refused to be in the picture and the idea of the whole group together in one shot seemed like such a big deal for everyone else that okay, damnit... just take the fucking picture and let's get this over with.
The pictures happened, our son joined us again, and we moved forward. We said good-bye to each other with full bellies from dinner and tired eyes from spending the afternoon at the swimming pool. There was some joking about photoshop, and that seemed like the end of it. Except for my husband and I. We felt like traitors. We felt like we had betrayed our son and let our good manners get in the way of his connection to and with us.
On our way back home we groaned about it. We wished we had refused to be in the picture. We wished we had talked with our son about the picture before it happened... helped him to get prepared. We wished we had done the picture earlier in the day... or on a different day. We wished this, we wished that. We hoped we would never see the shot. We hoped that the photographer would get what a sad deal it was and just delete the pictures herself. We dreamed that someone would understand that that whole scenario? It wasn't our kid misbehaving and trying to ruin the moment for everyone else- it was so much deeper than that.
Indeed. Another moment in time that we would like to go back and erase. Do differently.
But alas. Now we have the picture.
It wasn't deleted.
He wasn't understood.
It just was.
And there we are, with big plastic grins on our faces. Pleasing others while missing a part of us. While missing him. Over behind that tree you can't even see. Hiding.
I skimmed over the pictures and then settled on the one I had been most afraid of. The family picture. The one that was meant to show all of us: Grandpa, Grandma, Aunt Sarah, Uncle Jared, cousins Elliot and Oliver, Aunt Jenny, Uncle Josh, me, my husband, our daughter, and our son. It was meant to show all of us. But instead it was missing one of us. It was missing our boy.
It really did happen. And we looked like liars. Everyone was smiling huge in the picture. Our girl was in my arms, my husband was next to me... we were mixed in with everyone. A tangled web of family.
We all appeared quite normal.
What you can't see in the picture is our son, hiding behind a tree that wasn't even close to the rest of us. He had refused to be in the picture and the idea of the whole group together in one shot seemed like such a big deal for everyone else that okay, damnit... just take the fucking picture and let's get this over with.
The pictures happened, our son joined us again, and we moved forward. We said good-bye to each other with full bellies from dinner and tired eyes from spending the afternoon at the swimming pool. There was some joking about photoshop, and that seemed like the end of it. Except for my husband and I. We felt like traitors. We felt like we had betrayed our son and let our good manners get in the way of his connection to and with us.
On our way back home we groaned about it. We wished we had refused to be in the picture. We wished we had talked with our son about the picture before it happened... helped him to get prepared. We wished we had done the picture earlier in the day... or on a different day. We wished this, we wished that. We hoped we would never see the shot. We hoped that the photographer would get what a sad deal it was and just delete the pictures herself. We dreamed that someone would understand that that whole scenario? It wasn't our kid misbehaving and trying to ruin the moment for everyone else- it was so much deeper than that.
Indeed. Another moment in time that we would like to go back and erase. Do differently.
But alas. Now we have the picture.
It wasn't deleted.
He wasn't understood.
It just was.
And there we are, with big plastic grins on our faces. Pleasing others while missing a part of us. While missing him. Over behind that tree you can't even see. Hiding.
I have felt a little bit in your shoes before with Andrew. He had a period of time when he just flat out did not want his picture taken. He sometimes is still that way but for the most part he'll join in now. There was this one time in particular when we were with family and they wanted a group shot. He raised quite a fuss because a few of the family members where trying to force him into the picture. This had come up before and I had explained that he didn't want his picture taken but sometimes people just don't get it. I finally did say that he didn't have to be in the picture and to take the damn picture already.
ReplyDeleteTAKE THE DAMN PICTURE ALREADY! BUT WAIT! DON'T! TAKE IT! DON'T! TAKE IT! SHIT!
DeleteExactly.
I know this scenario. Intimately. And recently! Except we held our resister in the photos, so we have evidence of her presence AND her discontent. I'm not a fan of group photos myself, and to be honest, that's largely why my girl was unprepared. I didn't even think about the possibility of having to prepare her for that! But now it's on the official list: Things Which Must Be Discussed and Practiced Beforehand (Or We All Might Die)
ReplyDelete