Photographs as Heirlooms

I always love when my family gets together and we pull out my momma's boxes of old photographs. We all sit together (now alongside our own children) and go through each box chuckling and reminiscing.  Those boxes are filled with tangible memories that we can literally hold in our hands.  Cherished memories of my parents along with my siblings and I when we were little.  Some of the older boxes and albums hold photos (mostly portraits) from our family history.  Family members that we never got the chance to meet.  Stories that would have been forgotten and never shared without the photograph's documentation.  The feeling of the thick photo paper and the faded edges of the aged prints will forever stick in my mind.  All of these images, from 3 to 80 years old serve as family heirlooms that are often revisited. I know someday they will be passed along to our children, along with many others from their childhood for them to hold in the highest regard.