The diary we all carry about

It was Oscar Wilde that wrote “Memory… is the diary that we all carry about with us”. I happen to have a very good memory for particular things: phone numbers, people’s names, dates and so forth. It’s less reliable whilst I am still having interrupted sleep, although I am reliably informed by a professional parent that this will change when I get some time to myself once The Girls go to school. In the meantime I carry a memory back-up, otherwise known as a digital camera, which quite literally has a memory all of its own. It’s scuffed and beaten and covered in the miscellaneous dust and food particles that live at the bottom of my change bag, but it is ready to perform, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, much like me, to record the moments that make daily life sing.

The reason I mention my battered camera, my equally battered memory and that super quote from one of my favourite plays is this week’s Gallery theme: a Happy Memory. I’ve been considering it all week. There are the obvious candidates for such a topic, not just a happy memory but the happiest of memories: my wedding day, the birth of our children, watching The Mothership receive her MBE. And yet they are events of such significance that they almost fall outside of the remit, since they are events that others could look upon as their happy memories too.

Part of my logic for always having the camera with me- and please don’t think for a second that I entertain the idea of being a professional and am keenly honing my skills- is the fear I have that I won’t be around to see my Girls grow up. Thus I am cataloguing our lives together so that they don’t have to question others for proof that I spent time with them, taught them things, let them go bonkers, loved them with every fibre of my being: the proof is in the memory of the camera. It’s also a reminder for me: the chance to look back at how they have changed in such a short space of time. Lately the Dimpled Assassin has started wearing 18-24 month clothes, all of which were in Little Big Girl’s wardrobe when we brought her newborn sister, dimples visible even then, home from hospital. The clothing offers clear evidence that 18 months have gone by in a flash. The camera backs it up: thousands of photographs which fill my hard drive, proving that life has been full, busy, chaotic.

There have been so many happy memories, I find it quite impossible to pick one. There have been as many laughs as there have been tears, more in all likelihood. There have been high days and holidays, birthdays and Christmas days, First days and last days. But you never have to go far to find a happy memory: the moments I cherish most are the small ones, where LBG kisses it better when DA falls over, or when DA throws her arms excitedly around her big sister when she returns from school. I am privileged because I get to see them forge a friendship that will last a lifetime: I am raising sisters.

This photograph may not look like much but speaks a thousand words to me. A sunny Sunday afternoon, we broke along journey home and took the dog for a wee break. The girls were shoeless on the grass, running, laughing, arguing to share lead-holding duties. DH took the dog on leaving us three girls behind, yet instead of tears, I heard LBG say “Come on Bella…”. She held out her hand to DA, who took it, and they both inspected the grass until they found a patch which met approval. Lying down on it, LBG made herself comfortable, at which point DA nestled up close. And there they stayed, one on her side, the other on her tummy, as they have slept since birth: sisters, side by side, enjoying a quiet moment and waiting for Daddy to get back. I snuck up on them and sealed the moment in the diary we all carry about. And took a picture just in case.