an old picture in These titles mean nothing.

Deb, my sainted daughterinlaw, scanned some pictures of my brother.

This is 1975. Mike was 25. Picture was taken in this room. There’s my mother’s formica table. And the plate rack that came with the farm. The small plate with the blue pattern came from a very sweet cape cod house on the southeast side of Cedar Rapids. My friend Michelle had taken me and our kids to visit a friend of hers who was moving out and I begged a couple things - I wonder how I had nerve to do it.

Picture was taken soon after we moved back home - my brother left soon after we came back. That’s my mother’s wall paper on the wall. The old tv that my dad had been using. My last purse hanging on the closed door. It was a nice leather purse and it’s hanging on a nail on the inside of the closet door now. It’s gotten very hard and would take some oiling to soften to use. Since then I’ve just carried a wallet in my jeans or sweatpants or coat pocket.

I remember the pitcher on the tv with the plant slips in it. I think it’s still around. The photo to the right of the pitcher is of my husband and kids. The photo developer offered an enlargement of a snapshot and that’s the one we chose. It was one of those great picture that’s lost now. I photo-d the photo and it probably languishes in photobucket. Ah the past. Such a deep and dangerous place.

Yet.
Everything in the picture is still around - basically. Except my brother.

And my husband - even deeper in the past.