The Frame....

I'm sitting here in my living room on this beautiful Spring Day, and I am looking at pictures of my 5 children when they were at about 5 1/2 months old.  The pictures are framed in the custom made frame that once held my grandmother Dougherty's five children's senior portraits.  I always loved that frame, and after I had my own five children, I told my Nana, that someday I wanted that frame for my children's portraits. When my Nana passed away, I was given the frame.  It's a simple frame, but it hung in my Nana's house for so many years, and now I am proud that it hangs in my home with another generation of children's portraits in it.

The other special thing about this frame filled with my children's portraits, is that my three daughters are wearing a dress that my husbands grandmother had made for our oldest daughter Danielle when she was about 5 months old.  The dress was a pretty turquoise blue when Danielle wore it,  7 years later and a little faded Mary wore the dress, and 10 years later, faded even more Jane wore the dress.  This dress was made by Donnie's grandmother who is 100 years old today, and I am proud to say that I still have the dress tucked away in my hope chest, and maybe someday another generation of little girls will wear this dress.

That frame, and the dress that my girls are wearing in that frame, are a constant reminder to keep our memories of our loved ones past and present "Framed" in our hearts. Memories, even more than pictures, can be passed on from generation to generation, if we continue to share our stories of our parents, our grandparents and the grandparents who came before to our children and the children to come.  When people ask about the frame hanging in my living room with my five children in it....I tell them the story of how the frame came to be, and about the dress that Great Grandma made, and the story lives on, because I am sharing my memories, the ones that I "Frame" in my heart.