Memory lane

Part of my night was spent looking through our wedding pictures to email down to Miranda. She wanted some of her dad and brother at our wedding to print off for the memorial service being held today.

We've been married 8 years. Wow, the things that have changed in that relatively short period of time. I saw so many faces of people that we've fallen out of touch with. Some by our choice, some by their choice, and some by happenstance. What's harder to swallow is that there were a number of people in there that had passed on since then. I can think of at least 3 just off the top of my head. Looking back, I'm really glad we had all the people we did to celebrate with us. Sure, I've got a few more friends now that would have been awesome to party with, but for the most part, I'm pretty happy about who we shared that experience with.

One particular oddity is our wedding partner. We both chose people that we'd been friends with a reasonable amount of time and felt like we would continue on as good friends with. We had 6 people as attendants. All 6 have either fallen out of touch completely or we talk to maybe a few times a year. Strange in my book for sure.

Something else that struck me was how people changed in the past 8 years. Take my parents for example. I know my mom made a concerted effort to lose some weight for the wedding and she looks good in the pictures. I'd hazard a guess that an average of 10+ pounds has been added on per year since then. I'm worried about her for sure. My dad looks great in the pictures. He has a sparkle in his eye and looks like he feels good. Some pretty serious accidents have changed his life since and I'm sure he struggles daily just to get through without too much pain and it's really taken a toll. I'm worried about him too. From there you get into other family and it seems a number have gained weight since. I know I've really got some hair loss going on which sucks.

Back when we got married, our plan was to celebrate our anniversary every year by digging out our pictures and savoring the memories. We have only done this a couple of times. I'm starting to think we should pick that back up before those memories fade out. Anyone else out there strive to hang on to memories of some of the best times of your life?