I have this picture that I found a few weeks ago that feels important to me, even though it doesn't have anybody I know in it, even though I had never seen it before I set eyes on it under the humming florescent lights of a Wal-Mart in Lisbon, Connecticut. I wasn't even alive when it was taken.
It's a clumsy, all-American Christmas shot in black and white, three little girls and their teenage brother next to a squat, heavily tinseled tree. The boy is the only one not looking at the camera, his head tilted at an angle, his eyes not fully open. Judging by the half a smirk on his face, he wasn't completely ready for the shot. He looks awkwardly sincere in his plaid button down and crew cut. The martyred expression on his face is one I've seen a thousand other times in a thousand other family shots, almost always worn by the oldest child. I wonder whether he was exasperated by his parent's insistent behests--"Put your arm around your sister, there we go. Now smile and say 'Merry Christmas!'" I can almost hear them in the background, timeless.
Right below him is the smallest of the sisters, her face split by a huge grin and her brown hair in a bob. She holds a baby doll in her lap, maybe her first present of the morning, maybe her treasured companion. She looks like she could be someone's kid cousin; that innocent cuteness and infectious smile.
In the middle is the oldest of the sisters, but she looks the least like the others. The lower half of her face is obscured by a small doll, only the slightest corner of her Mona Lisa smile showing. She's pale in the eye of the camera, and her hair looks like it could have been light brown or dark blond. She's wearing some sort of shawl over her head, white to match her simple dress. She fits and yet doesn't fit in the picture, different from the others but still part of the family.
And finally, the 4th sibling half kneels to the right, her mouth puckered as if in speech and a Ponytail Sewing Kit held out proudly in front of her. She is my favorite part of the photo. Her eyes are alive and excited, her pose as if she's about to jump up and show Mommy--look! look!--her new sewing kit. She looks like the pictures of my mom I've seen from when she was younger. Maybe that's why I was drawn to this snapshot.
Or maybe it was its crinkled, soft edges and uneven cut, or the fact that all four family members sit off-center, slightly to the left of the frame. Maybe it was the faded 1960 penciled on the back, without any other names or a place or a date. No "Mark, Suzie, Karen, and Joy, Columbus, OH." Just 1960. The carpet they kneel on attests to this date.
Maybe it was just impulse that led me to pick it up in the first place, but the harder I looked at it, the more I loved this picture. It recalls countless Christmases I've experienced from more than one angle. I was once the little girl holding my favorite present out like a trophy, satisfied and triumphant. I was once the littlest person there, bottomless glee overtaking me just at the sight of the colored packages under the tree. And now I look on in an amused way as my brothers (really only Will anymore) tear through their presents, intent on opening the biggest first, then the smallest.
Over it all--the nostalgia, the curiosity--was an overwhelming sense that I had just gotten a glimpse into the past lives of these people; people who, in all likelihood, I would never meet or see as they are now. People who had gone on to grow up and get married and have children, to fulfill their dreams and meet their own failures. But I would and will never know.
And so I slid the picture from its place in the Lost and Found Photos album and into my pocket. Maybe I should have felt guilty, but instead I just felt pensive, like something greater than me had just brushed past and I missed it.
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