The Memory Project

Memory is a way of holding onto the things you love, the things you are, the things you never want to lose.  ~The Wonder Years

Today marks sixteen years passed, and while I was thinking last week of what I wanted to do to try and celebrate my mother, I realized I'm facing a new challenge born from her death. My children don't really know their Nana.

Monkey is usually the one who tries to guess her identity in pictures, but Scootch doesn't recognize her at all. He's convinced its always funny pictures of me. I tell them as many stories as I can, but since I only really knew her as a child myself, it isn't much. I have plenty of pictures of when she was a child, but once she became the photographer of the family there are very few occasions where her face filled the frame. So my idea is really a call for help.
I want to make my children a memory book of their Nana. My mother touched so many lives, and knew so many people. I'm hoping that I can petition for everyone to share a remembrance or a photo of her and I can print them into a book that will share her life and (mis)adventures of her adult years. Hopefully it will help my children learn why certain things they do make me laugh and tell them they're just like their Nana. Or why sometimes a certain smile or way they tilt their head makes my heart squeeze. They carry her within them everywhere. I hope this will help them know it.