With Father’s Day coming up on Sunday, my Throw Back Thursday will focus on meaningful pics of Matt’s father and my father. Though Matt’s dad passed on when he was three, from all I’ve heard both our dads were very hands on parents and my guess is they would have liked each other a lot, and found they had a lot in common including loving sports and dogs had they been able to meet one another. Matt and I have framed photos of our dads in matching silver frames.
Prior to the photos being put into silver frames, the photo of Matt’s dad, Raymond “Ray” and Matt was in a blue photo a few shades darker than the shirt Ray was wearing. The photos of my dad, Steven “Steve” and I were in separate frames. In the photo with Ray and Matt, Ray is holding Matt in pajamas so perhaps he had closed his eyes to sleep after being read or sung to. Though I had horizontal photos of my dad and I, the one of him taking me to my First Communion and the one of him at my college graduation both represented great memories at different stages of my life, so I combine them in the frame.
We were planning something special for them for our wedding so we decided on matching frames. The moment involved our wedding officiant, Gary, a friend of Matt’s family who is so close they refer to each other as cousins. After explaining we would be honoring our late dads, Gary handed us both a simple white rose.
We then took the flowers over to the frames resting on chairs near other mothers representing where our fathers would have sat.
We only had a quick rehearsal the night before and I had no idea Matt would kiss his flower, if I had I would also have performed this sweet gesture.
The roses and frames remained on the chairs for the rest of the ceremony.
Neither Matt nor I have a lot of photos with our fathers. In his case, it is as his father passed away when Matt was so young. In mine, while I was blessed to have my father alive until I was thirty-one, he was much more apt to take photos than be them even with me. I get my love of photography from him, though I am much more likely to appear in photos, particularly with Matt.
I treasure all the family photos I have very much. I know many photos were lost in moves along the way. With having a built in camera in our phones I know we will take many photos with our child in the years to come.
~ Danielle
Over 40 First Time Mom 