Over 15 years ago, when my grandma (my Dad’s mom) was still alive, I had started scrapbooking with her.
She had all these great old photos that we’d pull out and she’d tell me all about who the people were and what was going on for her at that time in her life.
I had a flexible schedule back then and I spent a lot of time with her, so this was a great opportunity for us to have something to talk about.
She would just “light up” when we’d get out the pictures, and the animated stories she’d tell me were priceless.
I didn’t end up finishing the scrapbook, and I so wish I had documented those stories, but I had managed to at least organize many of the photos.
And then she passed away, and the unfinished scrapbook and photos got put in my basement and pretty much forgotten about.
Until Christmas last year when my sisters and I were struggling yet again to figure out what to get Dad.
We started thinking about what we could get him that would really mean something and that’s when we decided to invest in documenting his family history.
We knew what Kathy had already created for Mom and we started really getting excited about doing this for Dad as well.
My Dad loves photography and took many pictures when we were growing up so we had a lot of great stuff to work with.
In fact, we had taken the time several years back to convert all the “slides” he had taken into a digital format thinking that would make them more “available” for us, and it did to some extent, however, there were many duplicates and they weren’t in any order so we basically looked at them once and then on the shelf they went.
This was our opportunity to pull it all together!
So I dusted off that old scrapbook and photos and Kathy went to work.
I knew it would be a fun and interesting experience to create the book but I had no idea it would end up evoking such deep emotions for me.
The interviews that Kathy did and the stories she captured are absolutely what I wish I would have captured when my grandma was alive.
I had never thought about my dad as a little kid or what his life was like growing up.
I only knew who he was to me from the time I entered his life.
I could see now the events and people who had shaped him into who I knew him to be and I found myself literally overrun with emotion – appreciation and gratitude for this person that I thought I knew but who had taken on a whole new perspective for me.
I could never have imagined that this project would end up where it did – we started with just a desire to create a meaningful gift and what we ended up with is a whole new relationship to our Dad.
What Kathy managed to document isn’t just photos and stories but a celebration of a life meaningfully lived.
I am so grateful that we invested in this now and didn’t leave that scrapbook yet again unfinished!
~Debbie Thibault
(Photobook for her dad – A Lifetime of Building (92 pages, 531 pictures – Legacy Package)
