Pictures of Us

My sister-in-law's been going through her attic and stumbling on ancient family photos along the way.  She's scanned them and emailed them to us in groups.  Most of the photos are of individuals or groups posed carefully and solemnly for a camera that required the subject to stay still for several minutes.The clothes and the hair are different, but the stories they tell are very familiar.   There's a great-grandmother who once wrote and published short stories.  There's a great-grandfather who owned a music store.  I'm hoping to see a photo of a great-grandmother who was a Mohawk and the story of whose union with the family I hope to discern someday.I've always been a history buff, and especially a family history buff.It started one summer when my aunt and uncle were visiting and my uncle was relating the story of how they had met and married despite strong objections from my aunt's mother (my grandmother).  He was German, and she was American, and my grandmother was very unhappy at the idea of my aunt moving so far away in an era when long-distance phone calls were still extremely rare.  My uncle was not so easily deterred and, after having received a reluctant refusal, had flown from Germany to Chicago and then driven 6 hours to find my aunt and make his case.  As he told the story, remembering how their 50+ year marriage had almost not happened, a tear ran down his face.  I, like all the other females at the table, decided this was the most romantic story that had ever been told in our family.The next day, I began to wonder if there were other stories that had simply not been told.  Subsequent trips to our annual family vacation spot became research opportunities, and when a knowledgable aunt was visiting, I began tape recording them as they related the family stories.In that time I've learned about another pair of star-crossed lovers whose parents, a generation ago, had objected to their marriage on the grounds that they were different races and from different countries.  That couple is still married.   I learned how my grandparents, despite Grandmother's summers spent near Grandfather's home town never met until they were adults because they lived in completely different worlds.  And I've learned that I love the stories of how people come together.We live in a world where the stories that make the headlines are about people being driven apart.  They're about lives being blown apart.  Often, the even the storytelling becomes a wedge, breathing distrust into every disagreement until the participants hardly recognize each other as members of the same species.  Over the past year, I've made more of an effort to look for the other stories - the ones that bring people together.  I used to be embarrassed about my love of romantic stories of people overcoming odds to be together, but now I think they're an expression of faith that people can actually do that.I'm looking through the photos and stories of my husband's family, one photo stands out.  It is a picture of a husband and wife, the husband staring at the camera while the wife leans her head on his shoulder.  They both have wistful smiles on their faces.  It's from the late 1800s, and their clothes date the picture more than the aged sepia.  I know their world was a million miles away from mine.  When I look at the serenely happy and casual pose, however, I realize that they look a lot like us.  It's a story worth pursuing.