Making Memories with a 'Run and Hider'

While visiting with our friend, Angela, and her family recently, we decided that it would be fun to document the moment with a photograph. As I grabbed my camera, her sweet, dear Mom pulled a Grammy trick--the run and hide! I couldn't believe it! There was another 'Run and Hider' in the world?

These women will do anything they can to avoid being photographed, much to the initial frustration of their loved ones. As time goes on, though, the family of a 'Run and Hider' seems to realize that it's just a lost cause. They eventually stop insisting that their 'Run and Hider' come out from behind that palm tree, or pillar, or in Mom's case, anyone taller than she was!

Today, as I was uploading some new photos and browsing through some old ones, I realized how mad I was at myself for being so easy going about the whole situation. I hardly had any photos of Mom, except for ones like this where she was hiding her lovely face from me. On purpose.

Grammy, thinking to herself: She won't be able to see me if I hide my face in my hands. I will be invisible!



All madness at myself aside, I am so thankful for this photo. It was our last Christmas spent up in New York, and our last Christmas spent with my Dad before he passed away. Mark wasn't able to be there with us due to his job situation down in Georgia, but at least Renee had both of her maternal grandparents together. Even though she missed her Daddy terribly, she was surrounded with love and laughter that Christmas. Can't you just see it on her Grammy's face?

That's what I love most about photographs, even the ones of the 'Run and Hiders'. They spur the memories of a special moment in time that might just be buried deep within us. I will always remember that Christmas as the most difficult to date since my sister's death, but I had somehow buried the fact that it was my last one spent with both my Mom and Dad. If it wasn't for their love and support that year, I don't know how Renee and I would have made it through Mark's absence.

From now on, as I browse through my photos of Mom, I will be thankful instead of sad. I will giggle at what a little stinker she was, and remind myself that it's better to have 20 prints of her half-hidden self than none at all. That, my friends, is what making memories are made of!