February 2011

As I write this, I am sitting on a plane returning from a family reunion in California. My cousin celebrated his 70th birthday yesterday and several family members flew in for the occasion. My cousin's grandmother and my grandmother were sisters, so while I see him all the time (since he lives in the same building as my parents), his sisters and their families all live on the east coast and the only time we see each other is at weddings, funerals, and other special celebrations such as this.

Since I grew up in southern California, it was an interesting weekend with all these east coasters. I could see my grandmother's face in many of theirs,  but at moments, it seemed like we were in an episode of The Sopranos, with all the effusive New Jersey accents. It was fun connecting and there were occasional anecdotes about the past but something really special happened that I wanted to share with you.

Some time in 1991, my cousin's 2 daughters went down to Florida and followed their grandmother around with a video camera; visits to the bank, the supermarket, interviews while driving in the car, and other local scenes and outings. All the time gathering footage of what her life was like while capturing her on tape talking about her past and her experiences. At some point afterwards,  they were roughly edited.  We had it running during the party. Most people watched although the kids floated in and out, unable to really relate to the woman on the screen. She passed away 10 years ago so many of her great grandkids never knew her. (I think they'll become more interested as they get older!) 

After the video was played, one of my cousins came up to me. I don't think she really knew what I do and how my mission these past 8 years has been precisely to create and save these stories. So without that context, she came up to my sister and me and said, "you know, when the girls first told me they were going to do this, I thought, how crazy is that? Who's ever going to want a bunch of video of my mom going to the supermarket? But now, I could have a million photos and it doesn't come near to the value of this video. That video is the essence of her, it's who she was! I miss her, but I have these DVDs to remind me of who she was, what she sounded and looked like."

I couldn't have said it any better myself!