The Future is Ours

They lean into each other--she pulls and he pushes, she looks out while he looks within--as they become one.  Terrance Glenn McCloy and Joan Margaret Carson.  That’s the name of these people--but who are they?  They’ve had drinks; clearly are warmed-up and enjoying being together on this festive night somewhere in the 1960s.  My sister and I aren’t born yet, but you can discern our potential existence in this rare happy picture of our parents.

This picture gifts me a glimpse into the life we never had.  Our little family--our parents, my sister Cindy and I--dissolved anathematically, when I was 2 and Cindy was 6.  Other than feeling lonely and invisible, playing under the dining room table, and losing my voice, I don’t remember much of our family time. But in this picture I see that for a moment or so, it could’ve happened, we could have been happily-every-after.  Believe it or not, this picture symbolizes hope, for it tells me that where I come from was once a place where two people fell in love. 

Ironically, this picture was discovered in our mom’s jewelry box when we were cleaning out her apartment post-mortem.  We didn’t see this image--created before our existence--until both of the progenitors it captures had passed. The wisdom that this rare photo imparts is that we all have a life beyond what others see.  There was a story before and a story after the picture that only we can tell.  It’s easy to just be sad and say: in the end our parents fought and divorced.  But that is not the accurate story, for they also fell in love and gave life to us.  They also, at one time, believed in each other with all their hearts--they leaned in to each other and momentarily became one. They had the courage to do that.  If I don’t remember the whole story, I’d be leaving out the best part, even if I wasn’t there to experience it--my sister and I are proof of it.  I believe in that story now. I always have and always will love the people in this picture--gratefully--with all my heart.