Surviving the Big D: My Photo Albums

Yes this deserves a mention, because had I known I would have taken them with me.  In the midst of the separation, his parents moved into the Dream House while their new retirement residence was being built, and also sometime that year or the year after (since it took over a year to finally get divorced) he was storing his friends things at the Dream House.  Somehow my photoalbums went missing.  Years of my childhood, pictures of friends at the beach, softball, pool parties at my house in Carteret, parties at the apartment in Edison, my head in the trash can after a New Years Eve party, pictures of my sister and I at Halloween, how my mom dressed us in similar outfits at the holidays, pictures of my Great Aunts and Uncle Mickey, my Grandmothers and my Grandfathers left behind and now are missing.  Some of the last pictures taken with my father before he passed away are somewhere in that Dream House, especially a picture of him that I recall from my wedding where he just looked so GQ, my Dad all dressed up in a tux.  They are albums in a brown box, probably with the word ‘PHOTOS’ on all four sides somewhere in that house unless he tossed them or his parents took them with them OR his friend accidentally moved it out with his things.

 

I’m still angry, I still don’t know why someone would want to hold onto my photos, photos from before his time.  Photos that he wasn’t apart of.  Photos that mean something to me.  I’ve stopped calling and texting for them back, at the time the refinance was more important (even that took 5 years after the D), but now I’m still angry, I think I always will be angry. 

I’m angry that I lost part of time in photos, that I can never show my niece and nephew pictures of their Grandfather, their Great Grandmother and Great Great Aunts and Uncle.  I can’t show them what it was like back then, I can only tell stories of the past.  I’m angry that they were never returned to me.

Yet I learn now that when I leave a relationship even if its for a temporary ‘break’ take everything with me, leave nothing behind because the person you once trusted for all those years is mostlikely not trusting with your things.