Looking back

Last night our girls decided that we simply must have a video camera. I just so happens that we have an old one that records onto a tiny vcr tape - 8mm maybe.
We haven't used it forever, since our first daughter was little wee and I was pregnant with little #2. We started watching the tape through the little eyepiece because I can't figure out how to make the thing play on the tv right now. It's amazing to see the funny happy baby making faces and learning to blow kisses and know that she is now steadily gaining way up the bridge of my nose. I'm not sure why it made me cry to see it. It feels like mourning some wonderful stage of life, the loss of her as a baby. That sounds nutty, because this is a wonderful stage right now! She's a gorgeous, smart, self reliant 11 year old...and sometimes I just wish I could keep every part of her, including the baby. At her first xmas, my husbands cousin Sean (14 at the time)is on the tape. He's a gentle, funny kid who strongly resembled my husband. I'm not sure I'll ever get over encouraging him to take up wall climbing. After that visit, he went home to New Zealand and tore down his tree house to make a climing wall; he loved it that much. He died four years later in an avalanche during a climb with friends.
Next on the tape is our daughter's first birthday. Among all the balloons and cake are my Granny and Grampa. (that's them in the picture - Loooong before I arrived)They are a funny story, divorced, but after many years, became friends again. When my brother and I were kids, we spent so much time with them. Grampa took us everywhere, like the park and the pool, and he never wanted to go unless we were ready to. He'd make us goulash and pudding for dinner. I'm not even sure what goulash is, other than yummy to a six year old. Granny was always slipping us chocolate bars, money, books, anything! She always said ,"Anything your little heart desires, dear" and she meant it. She even let me think I was the first grandchild; that's a totally different story.
They both died when I was 28. Grampa died four days after Sean, and seven months after Granny. Add to all that that I'm tired today and we have the makings of a good hard sob with an old video camera up to my face.
In spite of the sense of loss as I look back at the tape, and my old pictures, I'm so glad I have them. Every day is a going forward day with new plans and bright promises, but there is something about those happy memories and the bittersweet nostalgia of looking back.