Writing Feedback /
I BELIEVE IN PICTURES - they have power of repairing unrepairable hearts [6]
I believe in pictures. I believe that pictures have such compelling power of repairing unrepairable hearts. A single look on my father's picture brought me back from darkness that surrounded my heart when he left. Because of a single look on a picture, I felt that family bond will always be there even if some of the family members might not be around.I grew up in a lovely, family-centric unit that had a tight and unbreakable bond. I believed more in my family members than did in God. Somehow, I viewed my family as immortal. That is until the untimely depart of my father. A depart that changed everything I believed in about memories and my family.
I can't really say what it was that erased my father's face from my memories. Try as hard as I could to remember his features in my mind during the times when I needed his comfort, I always failed. Something was holding me back from remembering him on my own. The only way I could remember him, was through his pictures strewn throughout the house in photo frames and family albums.Then one day, I was fifteen at the time, I really needed to feel connected with my father. I felt a need to talk to him. So I took one of his photos to bed with me that night. It was the picture that I felt brought him back to family gathering. With his curved lips smiling at me, his eyes seeming to listen to what I have to say, and his overall facial expression of love staring back at me, I finally began to recall my father in my mind. Not the father from the pictures I had been looking at for 3 years, but the father who I had with me till I was twelve. Everything I remembered about him came rushing back, all because of a well photographed picture that seemed to capture his very essence in my family.
For three years of my life, I had been irritated by the depart of my father. The depart of the person I considered my guiding light. For the past three years, I felt my family was incomplete, no longer immortal. It took a simple picture to remind me that my family was immortal. That my father continued to be on within me. In my actions and in my words. In my mind, he will always be concerned, storytelling, happy - go - lucky man who used to teach me about the simple life. In my mind, he will never leave, he will forever be young and vibrant, even when I am old and gray. It took a picture to remind me of all that. The picture reminded me that my family was not broken even though one member was missing. It took a picture to help repair my broken heart, strengthen my belief in my family, and give me the confidence I needed to go on living. Without that picture of my father, my life would have turned out to be much different from what it is today. That is why I strongly believe that pictures can heal broken hearts and give people courage when they falter in life.
