I've never been the kind of person to say "It's the thought that counts" when it comes to gifts. That was until a couple of weeks ago, when my kids gave me a present that blew me away.
For years now, I've been really wanting to sell our home. the place where my husband and I raised our kids. But to me, this house is much more than just a building. In the front room, there's a wall that has hundreds of pencil lines, marking the progress of my children's growth. Every growth stage is marked in grey, with each child's name and the date when they were measured.
Of all the objects and memories, it's the one thing in a home that's time hardest to leave behind. Friends I know have returned home after work, only to discover their wall of heights has been freshly painted over. A new paint job wouldn't normally be greeted by tears. But erasing the evidence of motherhood hurts more than it should! Our kids grow in so many ways but the wall is physical evidence of their progress, right there for everyone to see.
I always repeated "How much I hate leaving that all behind when I move, even though the last marks were made ten years ago when my kids stopped growing. "
So one day, my children decided to do something about it.
They hired Jacquie Manning, a professional photographer. Over several hours, she took photos of the hundreds of drawings and lines, little grey fingerprints, and old marks. Somehow, she managed to capture all those years of memories perfectly. Afterwards, she put all the photos together into one image, transforming them into a beautiful history of my family. Three weeks later, my children's wonderful gift made its way to me-a life-size photo of the pencil lines and fingerprints that represents whole lifetimes of love and growth.
