Stolen Memories + Mother's Day

They were gone.  Stolen.  All of their memories, vanishing like the morning fog, no trace to be found.  My parents were moving back (well, my dad was moving back, my mom was coming for the first time) to the United States from Korea.  In their entire shipment of belongings packed up by the movers, two boxes never made it to their new home.  And these boxes contained the expensive electronics (including my dad's camera gear), as well as all of their photos.  In a matter of days, a lifetime of memories were thieved by someone who valued a paper dollar over someone else's treasured and irreplaceable paper photographs.

There are just a handful of photos that remain from my parents' early days of marriage, before my sister and I were born.  One of these is my mother's passport photo, and to this day it remains one of her favorites.  Several months back I took this small photo to a local camera store and had them scan it.  And just recently I found some time to retouch the new digital copy - getting rid of the honeycomb pattern from the paper, cloning out the imprinted passport stamp, and correcting all of the small scratches that have worn the photo through the years.  I then ordered an 11x14 enlargement on art watercolor paper and had it framed.  This was her Mother's Day gift yesterday, and her reaction was that of joy and tears.

Happy Mother's Day, Mom - I still think you're beautiful....

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