A Stand on the Sand—A Back Story

I sat down to scan photos of my Mom last night. My brother Dave, the family videographer, will use them to put together a DVD of Mom-ness that will be part of our memorial celebration of her life.

A scan of this picture made the cut.

In our family, to my Mom, to all the folks who cared for her in the nursing home, this photograph is simply referred to as "the picture." Taken in 1974, it features yours truly (as the oldest, I'm at the end of the line) all the way up to Dave in the front, the youngest Hakala, who was ten at the time this was taken.

The occasion was our parents' 25th wedding anniversary. Its taking was prompted by Mom's reply to our "so what do you want for your anniversary" questions. All she wanted, she said, was a picture of her kids.

At this point in time, we all lived on the Cape. Since this was the pre-digital camera age, we needed someone with a large format 35 mm to do this. It took a while but I found out that one of my co-workers had all sorts of cameras so we were good to go.

Now it was difficult to get anything past Mom so it took my oldest brother Don (standing in front of me) and I some finagling to gather up the younger sibs (Heidi, Paul and Dave, the three youngest, weren't driving back then) and coordinate with Jim, Pete and Mark to get to Sandy Neck Beach in Sandwich at the right time while praying for good weather.

We spent a few hours posing while my co-worker snapped away with cameras large and small. We were thrilled, figuring we'd have a lot of pix to choose from.

But none of the large format photos survived for reasons I think had a lot to do with the photographer. This one, taken by the smaller 35mm, turned out to be the best.

My Mom and Dad treasured this picture for more than 35 years. The original, a 9 x 12, will travel to the memorial celebration, and then get shared among us siblings. We're planning to each take a turn with it, exchanging it on or about Christmas every year.

When Mom and Dad moved into the nursing home, this photo took up prime real estate on the wall of their room. Mom used it as a way to introduce anyone who'd listen to her kids, and we all got used to being asked "which one are you?"

And they're we're caught in time, our thumbs out as we stand on the sand.