A Gift Made with Love
I've never been the kind of person to say, “it's the thought that counts” when it comes to gifts. That was until a couple of weeks ago, when my kids gave me a present that blew me away.
For years now, I've been wanting to sell our home, the place where my husband and I raised our kids. But to me, this house is much more than just a building.
In the front room, there's a wall that has hundreds of pencil lines, marking the progress of my children's growth. Every growth stage is marked in grey, with each child's name and the date they were measured.
Most people I know have been featured on a wall like this, or at least had a wall like it in their home. Of all the objects and all the memories, it's this one thing in a home that's the hardest to leave behind. Friends I know have returned home after work only to discover their wall of heights has been freshly painted over. A new paint job wouldn't normally be greeted by tears, but erasing that evidence of motherhood hurts more than it should. Our kids grow in so many ways, but the wall is physical evidence of their progress, right there for everyone to see.
Over the years, I've talked about how much I would hate leaving that wall behind when I moved, even though the last marks were made 10 years ago when my kids stopped growing.
So one day, while I was at work, my children decided to do something about it. They hired Jacquie Manning, a professional photographer whose work is about capturing the beautiful things in life, from clear lakes and skies to diamonds and ballgowns. She came to our house while I was at work, and over several hours, took photos of the hundreds of drawings and lines, little grey fingerprints, and old marks. Somehow, she managed to photograph all those years of memories perfectly. Afterwards, she put all the photos together into one image, transforming them into a beautiful history of my family.
Three weeks later, my children's wonderful gift made its way to me — a life-size photo of the pencil lines and fingerprints that represents entire lifetimes of love and growth.