This Is Mine / Tuesday, September 20

My favorite store here in Fargo has some really great repurposed, recycled furniture and household pieces to offer. 

Dressers, buffets, secretariats, dining room tables, chairs, cribs ... I could (and often do) go on and on. 

I was there today and came across this photo at the front counter. 

I asked Leanne, one of the owners, about it, and she said it fell off of a memo board one of the buyers brought in.

I was, for once, speechless.

I spent quite a bit of time this afternoon staring at this photo.

Attempting to peer into the faces, into the eyes, of these children.

Trying to step, even for just a moment, into the past. 

I wanted to know things. 

Who were these people? 

What were they doing? 

How did they spend their days? 

Then I turned the photo over. 

This.

Is.

Mine.

Those words rolled around first my tongue and mouth, and now they are lodged in my head.

Like a drama exercise from my high school years, they change their cadence, their tone, their power in each turn.

This is mine.

THIS is mine.

This IS mine.

This is MINE.


Who were these people?

What were they doing?

How did they spend their days?

And then I wondered ... what did they love?

Who did they love?

How did they love?

Who loved them?

And then I got to looking closer.

For most of the day, I only saw four faces.

That changed when I started to think about the love component.

It was then that I noticed the shadows.

Those dark silhouettes in the foreground that look, to me at least, like a man and a woman.

Watching.

Waiting.

And I can only assume ... loving.

Why else would someone so pointedly claim them in that moment, just as they were?

It's gotta be the love, man.