So with several trips to the Dollar Store where things are, yup, a buck apiece, many small picture frames were acquired. Many hours were spent selecting the frame that went with each photo, bringing out the color in the picture, having a style that "fit" better. So there they all were, covering 4 (four) six-foot tables (surrounded by the hats, of course), and there were more photographs on the tables where people sat to eat. At the end of the evening last night, the collection was stacked neatly in a box, put in the back of my car, and I drove them home, thinking "I don't have enough surface area to display these pictures. What will I do with them now?"
Last night I was too tired to shlep things into the house, so this morning, I brought the box in, and left it in the dining room area. Tonight when I came home, I thought again, "Whatever shall I do with all these pictures?"
And then, on a whim, I started going through them. And finding places for really a lot of them...choosing the pictures that spoke to me. So, even though I don't have a lot of flat space that is less accessible to the cat, here's where they are (admittedly with lots of sniffling, but with a lot of joy also), mostly on bookshelves, at least for the present time:
In the computer room: in an elegant gold frame, the one of Linda looking intently (we know it's her computer screen), two feet away from her computer.
The silly one from Spencer's bar mitzvah is in a frame with a purple and black checkerboard pattern, and it's on the paper shelf near where it had been tucked into a box.
In the living room: the collection of five: 4 of me and Linda (one on the bridge in Italy from the handout), two in restaurants, one "the feminine side of Brokeback Mountain," from a Halloween party), and one of her at a New Year's Party in a sparkly sweater; the fabulous late-chosen picture with the wind billowing her jacket on the deck of the NCL ship in Hawaii, blowing, flying; and the formal picture from Cassie's bat mitzvah, where we are in red and black (and the frame is silver and black, nice and formal).
In the dining room on the sideboard, a picture of Linda in a black newsboy cap, smiling (of course).
In the bookcase in the hall, where I took out the Nehama Leibowitz commentaries to bring to Meeka: in a purple frame, a purple hibiscus at Na'aina Kai with rain drops on it. Spectacular!
In the family room: water lilies, plumeria and one of Linda and Ketzl.
Down the hallway on the bookshelves: the two of Linda with Adam and David, from different eras.
Just across from the "inside bathroom" Linda in the hot tub aboard the ship in Hawaii.
The fabulous one that's in the program in the white straw hat with the bricks in the background.
another one of water lilies (channeling Monet), and a silly one where we are on either side of a giant stuffed bear in Germany.
In the guest room: two simple portraits: one in a sailor hat on the QM2.
In our (my) bedroom: "caution: butterfly zone" with Linda standing next to the sign, in Pacific Grove one January, and the two of the wedding ceremony 01/11/01, one of the two of us smiling at each other, one with Rabbi giving us a blessing.
I had to go and count. That's 21, or 26 if you count the individual pictures in the combo-frame.
So, going from the assumption that I didn't have enough space for them, the house is now totally populated with pictures.
Interesting, that we never before had many pictures of us around the house. Linda spent a lot of time sizing, editing for color and brightness, so many of her pictures from our trips. But once digital photography came to us, few were actually printed. So photos of her family (her grandparents, Nana and Poppy; her parents, Gaggy and Pa; pix of very young Adam and David) are now joined by 21-26 pictures of Linda, the two of us, and flowers. I'm still sniffling a trifle, but it feels really good.
More than one person has mentioned how sad it is that the California Supreme Court decision came after Linda died, that we didn't have the chance to get married "legally." But I will say what I told her: We were married. It didn't matter what or who knew or what or who sanctioned it. For the people to whom it was important, they knew. Linda and Deborah. Deborah and Linda. And now not quite that any more.
So the house is filled with pictures, small reminders of Linda's physical presence. As we all know, she is still with me, with all of us. ~~ It's OK to go grab a tissue now :-)
