Photographic Moments

Ballyscanlon Lake, Co. Waterford

We do not remember days, we remember moments.                   (Cesare Pavese)

This photograph of Ballyscanlon Lake has lived on my computer for almost five years now and I remember the moment I took it as if it were now.

It was back in late September 2010, just a few weeks after my father died and I followed the sunset out to Ballyscanlon Lake. I remember nothing of the day involved but will never forget the peace and solitude that I experienced watching the sun setting on that still evening when the air was full of fragrance after rain.

Ballyscanlon was a favourite haunt of Dad’s and I had such a strong sense that night of his presence there with me.

It never ceases to amaze me how particular photographs can bridge time and peel back layer after layer of thought, emotion and experience.

Do YOU have special photographs that are like bridges to precious moments?

Happy Days!

June 10 is full of memories as it was Father’s birthday. He was born in 1919 in Kilrush, Co. Clare ~ a place that remained incredibly special to him right up to the day he died in 2010.

Today, I think of his mother, a woman he absolutely adored and who died when he was a young teenager. I can just imagine them looking adoringly into each other’s eyes for the first time on this day 95 years ago. He was her second child and her first son.

Father’s Beloved Mother

I’m so glad that he kept her memory alive through this photograph which had a prominent place in the sitting-room of the various houses in which we lived. It never failed to spark him into talking about his happy childhood and indeed about the importance of building happiness into every single moment, however mundane the moment might at first appear.

Yes, Dad, I’ll be having that ice-cream in your honour today ~ cut from a block with a warm knife and sandwiched between two wafers.