Oh Mom!

Even during horrible times,  humor is sure to be present.

When my brother  died at the end of March, one of my jobs was to go through the tons of pictures my mother has collected over the past 60 years.  I was looking for pictures of my brother and of our family during happier times; pictures I would use for collages that I made for the memorial service.

I pulled out lots of very early pictures of my mom with my brother as a baby.  Carlos was the oldest of seven siblings so there were lots of pictures of him as a baby.  As other babies arrived, the pictures became fewer and far between.

One particular picture showed my mother at about age 18, holding my brother who was a few months old at the time.  She is standing next to a car, wearing a dress and a light coat, holding my brother.  It’s a black and white photograph; it was taken in 1950.  I thought it was a great picture so I had it scanned along with about 40 others and used it for the collage.

A week later, when I was back home, I was talking to my mother on the phone and when she asked me what I was doing, I told her I was putting together a CD with all the photos that had been scanned for the collages, along with a lot of pictures we had taken after the memorial service—pictures of my mom’s remaining four daughters, her grandchildren, and her great grandchildren.  I told her I had promised to make multiple copies of the CD to give to each of the cousins.  She immediately went into her very serious mode and said: “I want you to do me a favor. There’s a picture of me holding Carlos when he was a baby and I want you to take it out of the CD and don’t ever give it to anyone.”  I asked her which picture it was and she described the one I described above.  I asked her why she didn’t want it on the CD.  “It’s a horrible picture.  My slip is showing.  There are a lot of better pictures you can use.  I didn’t know you were using that picture until I went to see the wall of pictures.  I was so embarrassed to see it up there.  I wanted to rip it off and tear it in pieces!”

So she made me promise that I wouldn’t show that picture to anyone.  I thought it was funny and didn’t remember that her slip was showing in it.  I went back to look at it and sure enough, her white slip was hanging out the bottom of the dark colored dress!

I still don’t think it was a horrible picture.  I would prefer to see the humor in it.  However, my mom was just horrified that anyone would see that picture.  It made me laugh and even now, I’m tempted to put that picture in here but I promised so you’ll just have to use your imagination!

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