On the first day of winter, I am choosing to be thankful for all of the pictures on my Ipad and computer screensaver.
Over the years one of the mainstays of my life has been doing a lot of traveling. Some of it was going from one place to another in order to change my place of residence. Some of it was just pure pleasure, on a cruise ship or in our car. Even buses and airplanes had their day in the sun and one thing that tied them together was all of the pictures that I took along the way.
At first it was a pretty simple Kodak camera, and it took 20 pictures and plenty of them were not really worth saving. But we graduated to a better instrument as the years went by and I saved them for a while. Because I was living in so many different places all around the country I sent the majority of them to relatives to brag about all of the places in our American West. I am sure that lots of my children still have those old black and white pictures in their albums somewhere.
But now everything has changed. I take pictures with the Iphone or my Ipad, copy my friends pictures on Facebook, and put them into a screensaver on anything electronic. At any time I can sit and watch the pictures from all over the United States that I have actually visited, or smile at the children’s faces from long ago.
And when I look at an Alaskan landscape like a glacier, I can still bring forth the memories of standing on the deck of a cruise ship, can still feel the majesty and the awe that I experienced on that memorable day.
I can look at the picture of a great grandson only two hours old, and it is just like I was still there. Here in Florida I can look at our fruit trees in Michigan, loaded with blossoms, and remember how lucky I am to have lived on a farm. I can and do bring all of the faces of our children right in front of me, feeling the love and respect that we have for each other.
A screensaver is a wonderful thing, and I am so thankful for it. It is the reminder of all of the wonderful events in my life, always to be savored no matter where I am. Every picture is a reminder of how good life has been to me and so this is what I am most thankful for this Christmas.