Even though I’ve been in New York for many years, in many ways I’m still a southern boy at heart. My parents raised me, my brother, and my three sisters in an area just west of New Orleans. I’ve been back to visit on occasion, but this visit was different. It was to celebrate with my parents their 50th wedding anniversary.
The celebration was a bit belated partly due to Hurricane Katrina, which obviously changed the lives of everyone living in the Gulf region, and which put a temporary hold on our travel plans. The other reason was that three of us “kids” are now married and scattered across the continent with families of our own. It took a lot of coordination to bring everyone to get together for this occasion, but we were finally able to do it. In fact, one of my sisters and her husband surprised my parents by driving from an assignment in Mexico, so that we could all be together.
My mom and dad got married at an early age… dad was an athelete of 18, and my mom was an advanced school student of 16. They moved in with my mom’s parents, who already had a large family. There was minimal electricity in the house, not enough room, and other conveniences were at a premium. But my mom’s parents loved their new son in-law, and he helped expand the house. Since he knew some electrical work (learned from his own dad), he helped rewire their home and bring their place into the 20th century.
Clearly, my mom and dad didn’t always have things easy. But they stuck together even though they were only kids who hardly knew anything about life. As each new baby was born to them, they learned a lot more about life than they expected. And through it all, they gave so much back to us — a good work ethic, an honest concern for others, a sense of spirituality and who we are as people, and a desire to always do the best we could with whatever was given in to our hands at any point in our lives. We’ve each done that. And now some 50 years later, even though my dad has been through strokes and a broken hip, and my mom has suffered severe health issues of her own, I think my parents are perhaps more deeply happy than ever.
For this occasion we were all together again, along with our mates. My brother and his wife brought their two sons, the youngest one meeting his grandparents for the first time and who has the name “Ulysses” as his middle name (my father is also named Ulysses… I’m a “Jr.”). My mom cooked meals for us that I haven’t tasted in years. Mmm-mmm-MMMM!!! And we stayed up late talking about what they’d been through together, and how they were able to help their community post-Katrina. And sometimes, as families do, we all just talked about nothing at all. It was awesome. I appreciated every minute of it.
Here’s something else that struck me: My parents in many respects are the same two people today that they were when the top image in this blog was taken. The same two kids. Maybe that ought to be so obvious. But as a photographer today, I can now see the young kids inside of them that I never really knew when I was a kid myself living under their roof. That’s family. That’s love. And that’s what it meant to me to go home. I have so much to be thankful for, when it comes to my parents and family.
Jenni and I have a lot to be thankful for as wedding photographers. We know that what we do for others will only grow in value over time.
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