Home Videos... what a gift!

While cleaning out the back bedroom before my college daughter comes home tomorrow, I ran across a large tub I needed to empty to use for the fabric room. It was filled with videos...haphazardly tucked away. I realized some of them were home video...from the day when the camera was the size of today's TV cameras and about as easy to operate!

I hauled them out, dusted them off (and I don't mean that figuratively...) and my youngest and I started to watch them. Laugh? Till we about fell off the couch! We started with one in which my son who turns 26 tomorrow (Happy Birthday, Rory!) was celebrating his 2nd birthday. The first thing we realized is that we NOW KNOW where HIS son get's his behavior in front of a camera from...they "work the crowd" that's for sure! Somehow, it was connected to the TV so that our wonderful first time video was instantly on TV for everyone to see! "Rory, look at the TV..." "Baby," he said, grinning at the screen...

The extra bonus (beyond remembering how cute and sweet my 6' tall son was) was my grandparents, now both gone, alive and well chatting with us. There is a sadness/sweetness to that gift. It brought them back, for just a moment, and opened up memories I had forgotten.

It is interesting how life comes around. My son and his family now live in that home and we sit around, just as we did back those 20+ years ago, watching the children. There is no video of my childhood (but I do believe there is some reel-to-reel floating around somewhere...) but I would imagine it would be very similar, just a different generation oohing and ahhing over our antics, as we did our children and now do for our grandchildren. For us, it's in the very same room. How special is that?

There is something incredibly special about film ~ it captures voice (and oh, if you could hear that same daughter due home tomorrow shreak over her new dollhouse at Christmas when she was almost 3...as she's 21 now...) and movement. I love my photos, but video...it speaks. It's like someone has touched a place somewhere in the brain/heart and brings those memories back in a way no photograph can. I love my photos, but this video...how fun!

Can't wait to share it with the two "stars" of most of the films tomorrow night! Welcome home, Kelly and Happy Birthday, Ror! Shauna can't wait for you to see!