The Photo

About 20 years ago, my Aunt Elsie, my mother's sister, sent me a package of photos my mother had given her before either of them died.

I didn't look at them for years.

Most of them are me and my parents as I was growing up.

One of them was of me and my father and mother in our living room in an apartment with no central heat, in Anawalt, WV.

I was shocked when I saw it.

My father was in the easy chair, my mother on the right arm and me on the left, our arms around my Dad.

Both mom and I are smiling--I was 12 years old--and my dad, as was his custom, was not smiling.

But what shocked me was the picture above us in the photo.

It was of a Collie, in the snow, barking because he had found a wounded lamb.

I had the same print--on the bookshelf to the left of my computer--only bigger.

I had had it for years and didn't know why I had bought it.

Now I did.

Amazing what unremembered memories can do to the unconscious mind.

That photo is now in front of my print.

Past and present meet.

As they often do.