30 Years of Parents Waving Good-bye

 "30 years of waving goodbye to your parents. Sioux City, Iowa photos on ABC News" was all the text from my friend said.  I clicked on the link. 
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The article is about a photographer who was raised in Sioux City, Iowa and who took a quick snapshot of her parents waving goodbye every time she visited home during the last 27 years of their lives.  This Connecticut friend sent me this link knowing I was born and raised in Sioux City and knowing my parents had lived there in the same home for over 50 years.

Most of these are snapshots are quickly taken out of a car window but little things really stand out.  In some photos her parents are tightly hugging each other, in some they are caught off guard and aren't even facing the camera, but in almost all of them they are joyfully smiling and happy that their daughter came to visit.

In the last photo of her father, he's leaning heavily on a four-footed cane.  In the last photo of her mother, she's struggling to get out of a chair as she smiles and waves with her free hand.

Some of these photos are Thanksgiving photos -- cold weather coats but no Iowa Christmas snow.  Still, most of these remind me of both holidays.  A total focus on nesting in with your parents during cold weather.

What also makes these photos powerful is that they aren't taken in 27 different places and 27 different angles -- there aren't some at a Thanksgiving table, in front of a Christmas tree, or of dad with a Santa hat. These photos are powerful because they aren't taken at different places and at different angles.  They are taken of the same people in the same driveway of the same house.

 It's like a time lapse movie.  It's the time lapse movie I wish I would have taken.

For me, the most eye-watering verse of any holiday song is the last line in the song "I'll be Home for Christmas."  After promising "you can count on me," he details all of the heart-warming things that he is looking forward to -- snow, mistletoe, and presents under the tree.  Then he gets to the twist in the punchline.   He sings, "I'll be home for Christmas . . . if only in my dreams . . . if only in my dreams."  He won't be physically home for Christmas; he's only imagining what it would be like if he were home.

Bing Crosby sang that song in 1943, and I always pictured that it was written from the point-of-view of a soldier or sailor who was overseas fighting in WWII and mistily thinking -- perhaps praying -- what it hopefully would eventually be like to "Be home for Christmas . . . if only in my dreams."

Now that I think of the lyrics -- especially after seeing these photos -- I think they could also have much more finality to them.  That is, warmly remembering the Thanksgiving or Christmas of younger years, but knowing that chapter has passed.

When I think of these photos, I think of this song.  Next month, every time I hear the song, I'll think of these photos.

I wish I had taken 50 years of photos of my parents waving goodbye in front of our home.   I also wish I had spent more time talking with them about . . .  whatever . . . instead of being too "busy."


www.newyorker.com/culture/photo-booth/a-photographers-parents-wave-farewell