Familyhood Read Online Free PDF

closer to—”
    â€œI’m Matthew!”
    â€œSorry, sorry. Matthew . Could you lift your head just a bit? I’m having trouble seeing your face and—”
    â€œ Da Vinci!!!!”
    â€œSorry, sorry . . . but you guys are going to want to see everybody’s face.”
    â€œJust paint it already, for crissake!”
    â€œHey!”
    â€œOh. Sorry, Jesus.”
    It just can’t be helped. The second a tender moment occurs, a bell goes off in my head, alerting me that not only is this a wonderful moment, it would also make a great photo.
    I don’t know if this is a uniquely male characteristic, or something that I just inherited from my particular father, but I see that I now regularly do exactly what he used to do, which he did much to the irritation of myself, my siblings, and every relative within camera range.
    My father did have a genuine fascination with emerging technology that I did not inherit. I remember the first indoor flashbulbs he used with his old 8mm movie cameras. (It could have been 16mm. Or 144—this was quite some time ago.) My recollection is that the flash consisted of about a dozen bulbs—each the size of a small melon—mounted on a cumbersome wooden stick, and taken together, they gave off enough light to land an incoming Spitfire in the depth of night. I have an image of my father standing on a chair over the Thanksgiving dinner, holding up this substantial stanchion of lights with one hand, aiming the prehistoric 8mm camera with the other, and shouting at us to “Just be natural and eat the turkey.” I don’t recall it being a particularly relaxing evening.
    Then there were the early Polaroid cameras that involved chemically treating each photo as it came out. We had to take this little pink scraper about the size of a small cigar and run it over the image with a sticky, foul smelling gel, so the intrusions to the family’s great moments were not only chaotic, but also came with a nauseating toxic fume.
    There were virtually no occasions too sacred for my dad’s inescapable camera.
    Late in his life, we were at the funeral of one of my uncles (the husband of my dad’s sister), and my dad very casually pulled out his newest toy—a sweet little German spy–type of camera—and clicked off some shots of the proceedings. I remember taking his defense when he got a bunch of nasty looks and snippy comments for this breach of decorum. On the way out, he even took a “lighthearted” snapshot of one of my other uncles—the unpredictable and more free-spirited of the family patriarchs—clowning around and doing a funny wave as he left the grave site and headed to his car.
    As fate would have it, Uncle Funny passed away ten days later. This photo—the last one of him ever taken, waving good-bye in front of a sea of gravestones—was suddenly the collectible item in the circle of family and friends, and my father was suddenly the sought-after artiste of the family, his persistence and diligence no longer an annoyance or a point of mockery but now a virtue to be celebrated. (Though not for long. At the funeral of the waving uncle, not fully two weeks after the funeral of the first uncle, my father again took out his camera, only to be assaulted with an immediate and virulent chorus of “Enough already!”)
    But I was forever informed by that photo and the tacit lesson involved: they may give you a hard time when you take the shot, but they’re going to be happy they have it later.
    WHEN YOU CONSIDER how technology has made it so easy to record our special moments—disposable cameras, phones, and music devices that capture anything at the push of a button— not ruining the moment by taking a photo feels downright irresponsible and lazy.
    So, yes, we can now capture every fleeting tender moment. But that doesn’t necessarily mean there’s that much more to capture. People don’t