The VHS Tape

The Day the Flags Flew: Taken in Port Deposit, MD

I've been absent for a few days because I was visiting my mother in Virginia.

It is always good to spend time with her

and I think she enjoys our company as a change of pace

to her usually quiet and still household.

As we were rooting through more of my father's belongings yesterday,

we discovered several VHS tapes labeled "Tyler."

I was intrigued and so we popped the tape into

a VHS player (yes, my parents STILL had one, thank goodness!)

After a few seconds of black and white fuzz scrolling across the screen,

all of the sudden there came into focus a squawking

baby boy all naked and new lying on the scale in the hospital.

My firstborn son.

WOW.

I didn't even know this tape existed.

And then, for the first time in two months,

I heard his voice...

my father came to life in front of me on the screen.

I felt like someone hit me in the chest and knocked all the air out of me.

My father's voice, the twinkle in his eye, his huge hands

all right there in front of me once again.

Still pictures are great, but to see him alive and smiling and talking and joking again

was simply a miracle to me in that moment.

 There he was, holding his first grandchild for the very first time...

in living, breathing action instead of a still shot.

What a gift.

These video tapes are a treasure to me now more than ever...

I was also able to see and hear my grandparents, who are now gone.

My horse, who just passed away, was on the same tape

winning first place in a horse show...

my beloved 19 year old cat that passed this spring

went running through the background of one scene.

Everything I love and miss dearly was there,

captured on VHS for me to discover again.

 

I am currently searching for a reliable way to get these 

preserved and transferred to DVD and digital format

so that I may always have them and my children will have them 

to treasure and to pull out when they need to.

Today I am thankful for my mother who did most of the taping

17 years ago (to the chagrin of all of us being taped at the time).

I could never have known back then just how treasured

it would become now.

 

*Note to self---Pull out the phone and video my family more often!

xo