Here’s something that I came across this week. My wedding album from my first marriage. I’ve kept it all these years…
The wedding was in 1976, and the divorce was 24 years later. There have been times when I thought I should just throw it away. But I have two sons, and although one doesn’t have a relationship with his father, the other does.
Earlier this year, I scanned some of the loose photos of that event and put them in an album that the boys can access on FOREVER. It’s amazing how time can change how you think.
Thankfully, I’ve kept the album because I decided I could take it apart and have the photos scanned at FOREVER (I have a huge FOREVER Specialty box going in). I took a photo of the cover and made it the album cover for an album that I created on my FOREVER account called “The Wedding Album.”
When the scanned items come back from FOREVER, I can rebuild the album if I want, or I could probably throw it away. I’m sure neither of the boys will want it (but I’ll ask), but they will still be able to access the photos. Maybe not now, but someday. There’s time because I have the FOREVER guarantee to preserve them for my lifetime plus 100 years.
Photos are a powerful thing. They bring back memories of happy times, and sometimes they make you sad. I realized that despite what ended up happening in the marriage, it was still a part of my life that I could keep, and that’s ok.
I decided to write about this today because I’d seen in a Facebook group someone with a question about how to preserve a difficult time in our life. In this case, the person was dealing with photos of their child who had died years earlier, and the photos were still challenging and emotional to look at. Some people suggested putting them away and dealing with them later, and that certainly is an option.
But another option I thought of was that she could create an album and then take the photos she had, put them in a FOREVER Box, and have someone else scan them. If you couldn’t even look at them to put them in a box, then you could ask a friend or a photo organizer to help you. But at least this way, she could be reassured that they were preserved, and that was her original reason for her post, but she just didn’t know how she could get past the feelings.
As I said earlier, photos can be powerful, and they can bring back memories, and sometimes organizing them can be difficult, so sometimes you can do things yourself, and sometimes you need to leave the job to others.
For those of you who are interested, I started a few years ago preserving all of my and my parents’ photos and now I’m on the next step which is to “preserving my genealogy FOREVER”. This is a work in progress so some of the items I’ll scan myself and some I will have scanned at FOREVER. I’ve been doing genealogy for many years so there is a lot to get through but I’m happy with the progress so far. Here are just a few photos to show you. (Sometimes it’s just art and not all genealogy). If you need some help don’t hesitate to ask. You can book a free 20 minutes FOREVER chat on my calendar.
FOREVER offers two types of Box: the regular FOREVER Box for 2, 10 or 20 items or a FOREVER Specialty Box where you purchase a dollar value and then you fill the box with equal or great value of the box. (you will be charged for overages).