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Scent of Light Episode

by Ken Norton

Mom's Photo Albums

Original Broadcast August 11, 2019

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The audio file above is the spoken word recording without background music provided to Radio KOWS 92.5 FM broadcast of the Scent of Light episode for insert into the Radio Spotlight Magazine with host Andre Marc.

Transcript

In this episode on the Scent of Light I will speak on Mom's Photo Albums. I had the opportunity last week to travel and visit my mother, who still lives in the house where my seven younger siblings and I were raised. Since my sister who is only a year younger than me is being given a retirement party I was asked to help Mom find photos of my sister and take digital photos of them with my smart phone.

Mom showed me to the shelves in the front bedroom where the albums were lined up on a Shelf in the closet and on the floor as well, some twenty of them. I started with the first, which began with a baby picture of my dad and his parents looking lovingly at him next to another photo of my mother as a baby with her parents looking down to her in her mother’s arms. Some older persons appeared which my mother identified as my great-grandparents on both sides.

The journey had begun, partly with shoots of my mom and dad’s babyhood in childhood and partly with roots of ancestors I only see through these photos long after they we’re deceased, yet through my parents they influence me with passed on learned behaviors and genetic benefits, as well as handicaps. Next were arranged the photos of my Dad growing up with his year-and-a-half older brother, and of them hanging out with their high school friends, who would stay close and party or take trips together until their passing in their high 80s or early 90s. Then I gazed at Mom’s photos as a student in her school uniform with her friends. My parents then meet, and after permission was granted by my grandfather, their wedding followed complete with flowing white satin.

The next album I and my sisters and brothers appear and remembrance starts to play a role. I snap photos of my sister’s photos in the album along with the back sides for the notes on the occasion. This task helped me to move on through these 90 and more years of photos relating to my parents life, while still observing my changing feelings as photos of relations from my youth through adulthood flashed before my eyes in the three days allotted by my visit. I watched as the photos of birthdays and holidays, weddings and memorial services greeted new arrivals and mourned the loss of those passing. Some were still bound in love and some were estranged from heated conversations and not yet forgiven. “It's those arguments over politics and religion", my Mom shook her head in dismay.

I collected about 150 photos digitally for my sister's retirement party from those albums. I also gathered a sense of 90 years of family and friends of my parents that revealed features that were more constant and evidence of the character that would serve as a shortcut to their memory in me. Through looking back in time I understood more deeply and expansively the living family tree constantly birthing in the new participants in life, celebrating their achievements, and reluctantly releasing family members and friends to the Great Mystery. The faces of beings in memory become a collage of graces as I gratefully realize the preciousness and limited appearance of each moment with them.

It was special to have such time devoted to my mom and myself. I don't like thinking that her and my time are limited, but all those passing faces in the times represented by her photo albums let’s me know that is inevitable. There is that something that remains, that is to me wisdom, gleaned from the tugs of love when expressing what is valuable to one's sense of identity and loyalty.

This is Ken Norton on the Scent Of Light. You can contact me via Ken at KennethENorton.com. The Scent of Light episodes are archived on the web at kennethenorton.com. Thanks for listening.

About the Author and Producer

Ken Norton earned his master's degree in Materials Science from Stanford University as the Vietnam War was ending. During that time Ken served as the personal assistant to a poet/sociologist Dr. William Hermanns as he prepared his writings for publication, exposing Ken to not only the sciences but also the humanities and comparative religion for making conscious and conscionable choices.

Ken is a regular contributor to Radio Spotlight Magazine with his episodes on the Scent of Light.