When my Mother passed, I found in
her things these old tintypes and
photographs dating from the
nineteenth and early twentieth
century. They are pictures of family
and friends of family, almost all of
people I never met and never even
heard of, most of whom had died
long before I was born.

 

Many look self-consciously at the
camera. Dressed in the fashions of
their day, none appear well-to-do,
but neither do they seem wanting,
at least for food, clothing or shelter.
As for the most basic human wants,
love, fulfillment, and serenity, we
can’t know. We can look at the
expressions on their faces for clues.
Some appear tired, some unhappy,
perhaps lonely among company.
“Mother Bratton,” I think, projects
a matriarchal nobility and, alone
from all the others, satisfaction.

 

Some of the pictures have names
and place written on or scratched
into the back, names that merely
ring a bell, places from stories told
long ago, now mostly forgotten.
Who are these people? Some, being
my antecedents, are me, or rather, I
am them. The others, their cohorts.
Are they like-minded, or were their
gatherings full of animated
arguments about the politics and
current events of their day? They
look at us as though through the
fog of yesteryear, the mist of time.
They seem to say, “We were here.
We were.” And in these pictures,
they are here today, with us. I look
at them and I think, Who is who,
and which is which?

 

I wish I knew who they were.