Memories

We have officially lost all of the data from our hard drive. The attempts to recover our photos and videos from our old computer were fruitless as well.

Gutted. Sick to my stomach, and such a strong sense of mourning. It isn't just photos we have lost, but access to memories. It's like we have allowed ourselves to mentally delete the shortcuts because we would always have the pictures to rely on to remind us.

I always loved to go through those pictures on random - snapshots of our lives over the last 6 years since we went digital. Our own personal highlight reel. There were always pictures that would prompt an "Awww, remember that?" or "Wow, I forgot all about that!" The hardest part isn't actually losing the pictures, it's knowing that because the pictures are gone, certain memories will just disappear into the ether.

Photographs have the ability to take you right back in time. It's like you can experience your children as tiny babies all over again. The picture delivers you to that moment that you first held your child and you can feel it, you can feel that baby in your arms, you can feel the pride and love and relief and intense joy all over again because you are there all over again.

I had to ask myself: what can I learn from this? There's the obvious: back up data! But on a deeper level, I think this is a (harsh) reminder to really be mindful of every moment. Be there. Live. Take it all in. If we rely on photographs to replace our memories, we are missing out on the richness of keeping those memories in our everyday lives. Before we know it, poof! It could all be gone.