The tiny photo I will never stop looking at…

It’s such a tiny little photo, cut out from an original Polaroid forty years ago. It lived in my wallet until recently. I realised the Perspex cover had removed most of the print from its surface. I tried to scan that little photo, Perspex and all, but without luck. Then, after carefully peeling away the clear sheeting that had adhered to it, I managed to scan what remained.

It’s such a tiny little photo. It lacks definition. The shape of the face can be seen but the eyes look all wrong. The nose is almost invisible, the lips smudged. The hair is indistinct although the sideburns are there, and the shape of the ears.

It’s such a tiny little photo. Barely the size of a postage stamp, it cannot show the fine, dark hair and careful coiffe; the light, perfectly applied makeup; the cotton weave jacket over satin t-shirt.

It’s such a tiny little photo. It has no real capacity to show the personality of the subject, let alone provide an understanding of the love, the warmth, the passion and the humour once portrayed.

It’s such a tiny little photo of Marie, the woman who wed me.

It’s such a tiny little photo but it provides a link to a day, four decades gone. To the day we met: the day we knew, within hours of meeting, that we were meant to be together. Even tiny as it is, lacking the detail it does, even in its incapacity to provide any real understanding of the woman and her essence, it lights me up every day I look at it.

It’s such a tiny little photo but the memories it generates are priceless. I recall a statement by a psychologist; “Memory is the means by which we draw on our past experiences in order to use its information in the present”. He is probably right. I do know the best memories are those relating to the nicest of all experiences. Many of these are very personal, of course. If you will allow, I’d like to share one with you.

I flew into a remote location to see the General Manager of a business. My first visit, I was advised to go to the second door down a passageway. Passing one door, I came to a second. This door was ajar: I tapped and, receiving a bright ‘yes’, entered a tearoom!

Paraphrasing Robert Liddell Lowe, “By such small things we live…”

“Would you like a cup of tea?”, the speaker turned around from the bench where she stood. Oh God, she’s lovely! My throat constricted. I could barely croak a “yes, please”. That cuppa lasted around twenty minutes… and changed my life.

The woman who poured that hot drink on a cold winter’s morn was Marie: tall, willowy, pretty, bright as a new penny, she possessed a wicked sense of humour. The personality flowed from her. I chatted away, totally unaware of how late I was for my appointment. Each of us knew, pretty much from the moment of meeting, that we were meant to be. The attraction we felt toward each other was immediate and engulfing.

How strong was the attraction? I guess I can sum it up thus: as we talked, I realised Marie’s eyes were different colours. Her right eye was a light greenish-blue while the left was dark brown. I said to her, “You must be intelligent, a lot of Border Collies have eyes like that…!”

Despite the gaffe, we were wed until death did us part: well nigh forty years.

It’s such a tiny little photo but it helps maintain me as I continue life without her. I will forever miss Marie, the woman of heterochromic eyes. That tiny little photo helps me recall the day we met and the life we shared. I keep it now with the very last photo, one I took just four days before she died.

It’s such a tiny little photo. Despite its faults, and along with its successor, it helps bookend our life… and our love.

Do you have a photo like John? Tell us about it… How do you treasure the memories?