Today I picked up the restoration of a picture that hung above my grandparents' bed my entire childhood. It was a frame and picture I have long admired since I was a little girl. It is one of those fancy oval frames with the rounded glass. It was a photo that had been taken long before I was born of the farm my grandparents owned in upstate New York, between Buffalo and Niagara. It was of the barns and fields and trees where my mother and uncle grew up.
I have longed to own it for decades, in part because I loved the frame with its rounded glass, but I also loved that the photo was one that meant a great deal to my grandparents. Although I only visited the farm once, I, most importantly, loved this photo as well because of the heritage that came with it, the stories of the hundreds of chickens, the daily egg deliveries, the farmers markets, the huge gardens and fields, and the experiences that made my mother and my grandparents who they were.
Long ago the fragile print tore after being taken out of the frame, and the colors faded to dull grays and pale yellows, but my mom kept the print and frame with glass with the intention of restoring it one day. After my mother died this past October, I found the frame and picture in the storage unit, and I carefully dragged it halfway across the country in my crowded Ford Focus.
Today I picked up the restored photo.
Today is an important day because today was the day in 2020 when I realized life as we all knew it was changed. The educational system, the norms, the hugs and gatherings, the friendships----all came to a screeching halt due to a virus that became more threatening each day. All were replaced by uncertainty, masks, and more of an isolated life than I was used to.
Life these last 12 months has not been easy. Life is more uncertain. Life is more tenuous. Friendships and families are often only held together by the virtual waves of Zoom and Facetime and phone calls and emails.
I recently described to a friend that life in 2020-2021 has made me feel like I am a shadow of my former self. The death of a mother, the hospitalization of a husband, the silent pain of watching my sons absorb the loss of graduation ceremonies and the loss of after-graduation job opportunities have certainly not helped. Like all of us, I have regularly grieved putting plans for the future on hold and grieved the loss of the strength I used to get from friendly hugs and the presence of others. Perhaps my description of a shadow was poorly worded.
After seeing the before/after picture of my grandparents' photo, I believe a more fitting description is that life in 2020-2021 has been muted and dulled, and some of the color has been temporarily removed.
However, I do have this hope 365 days after the news that we would be in quarantine and I would be teaching from home-----life can be restored. The color, the vibrancy, and the joys can be restored. I have found brief moments of this in the past twelve months with a renewed respect for the power of a colleague's smile on a Zoom screen, with a new-found discovery of new ways to teach, and with a new appreciation for the smaller things of life like the spears of asparagus I now have peeking above the dirt in my raised garden.
Just as that restoration photographer did, I can work on stitching up the torn pieces of 2020 and 2021 and adding color and life back to this world. I can add color back into the lives of my friends, my family, my sons, and my students. The color was there all along---hiding behind the faded surface.
Merriam-Webster defines restore as "return (someone or something) to a former condition, place, or position." Life in 2021 and the future may never be the same as pre-COVID. I may always hold myself at more of a distance in crowds and these moments of this past year will never be forgotten. However, the things that bring me the most joy---the relationships I have with others, the small leaves that are about to burst forth from my bur oaks, the tender cuddle of my dog, and the hugs of my loved ones--can be restored.
