Photographs and Memories

Photos are quaint inventions: they freeze moments in time and, when at a later time viewed, evoke emotions and memories of captured life events.

I was earlier browsing through my old pictures that have been posted on Facebook and I was delighted by the different events it brought me back to, along with the varied feelings they stirred up in me.

From family photos of vacations in Manila, to trips I had made to other countries, to the times I spent teaching biblical truths to high school students, to the first few dates I had with my fiancee, pictures have a way of immortalizing the fleeting and preserving the meaningful.

Pictures also bring back precious memories of dearly departed loved ones: like my late father who can often be found sporting a matter-of-fact look on his face; or Sir Allan, a member of one of my Bible study groups who used to bring all sorts of questions to our meetings; or my cousin Edward who was witty, sharp, and amiable all rolled into one.

Two years ago when my brother and his family spent a month in Manila vacationing from New Zealand, my nephew Ravi asked me why I took so many pictures of them and us together. I immediately gave him the honest answer: 'when this vacation is over and our time together is up, these photos will be all I have left of you guys... until we see each other again."

That proved to be quite appropriate in most of my relationships these days since all of my immediate family now lives in New Zealand, and my fiancee lives and works in New York. The times I spend with them are few and far between. So whenever we get together, I take as many pictures of them and with them as I could, capturing the moments we share and encapsulating our emotions and conversations in images printed on pieces of paper.

A picture is truly worth a thousand words. And when they are pictures of people we love and of cherished moments shared with them, their worth in words significantly increases as they carry something of more value than the paper the image is printed on.