Before I Was the Author in the Photo
I’ve been looking through a lot of old photographs lately.
And today feels like an especially fitting day to do that.
October 15 is my Papa Tom’s birthday.
He isn’t here to celebrate it anymore, but birthdays have a funny way of staying on the calendar long after someone is gone. The date comes around every year carrying its own collection of memories with it.
So today, I find myself looking backward.
At him.
At family.
And at all those younger versions of me who had absolutely no idea what was still ahead.
Because when I look at an old photograph now, I know something the girl staring back at me doesn't.
I know what happens next.
She doesn't.
And there's something incredibly strange about that.
There Are So Many Versions of Us
There's little-kid Amber.
Softball Amber.
Teenage Amber—who, like most teenagers, probably had opinions about absolutely everything while simultaneously having no idea how much life was still ahead of her. 😂
There's the girl standing beside people she assumed would simply always be there.
And I think that's one of the things that hits differently when you look at old photographs as an adult.
As a child, you don't look around and think, I need to remember this.
You don't realize that one day you'll want to hear someone's voice again.
You don't think about how a birthday will feel when they're no longer here to celebrate it.
You certainly don't recognize that an ordinary afternoon might someday become a memory you'd give almost anything to step inside for five minutes.
You're just there.
Living it.
The Ordinary Photos Mean More Now
It’s funny which photographs become important.
Usually, they aren’t the perfectly posed ones.
They’re the ones where something is happening in the background that only your family would recognize.
An old truck.
A dog you haven't thought about in years.
A familiar piece of land.
A pair of what we called Snead's Ferry Sneakers—the white rubber boots we wore for basically everything from fishing offshore to knocking oysters or whatever else we happened to be doing.
A softball uniform from the last season before life changed again.
Or maybe someone you love is standing just outside the center of the picture.
At the time, none of it seems particularly remarkable.
Years later, you realize the photograph preserved far more than faces.
It preserved a version of your world.
The People in the Background of Who We Become
When we talk about becoming who we are, we tend to focus on the big milestones.
School.
Careers.
Marriage.
Children.
Moves.
Accomplishments.
Losses.
But I think we're also shaped by hundreds of people and moments that never make it onto a résumé or biography.
Grandparents are part of that.
Papa Tom is part of that.
The people who knew us before we had titles attached to our names knew versions of us the rest of the world never will.
Before I was a Soldier.
Before I was a paralegal.
Before I owned a business.
Before there was an Author Amber M. McLamb.
I was simply Amber.
Someone's daughter.
Someone's granddaughter.
A kid running around without the slightest idea that she was already collecting pieces of the stories she'd someday tell.
I Can See What She Couldn't
Sometimes when I look at younger versions of myself, I wonder what I would tell her if I could.
But I'm not sure I'd tell her very much.
How do you explain an entire life to someone who hasn't lived it yet?
There would be moves.
There would be an Army uniform she hadn't worn yet.
A career she couldn't have predicted.
A family that wouldn't necessarily look the way she expected.
A business with her name attached to it.
And eventually, books.
There would also be loss.
There would be people she thought she'd have forever who would eventually exist mostly in photographs, memories, stories—and dates on a calendar that still belong to them.
Maybe I wouldn't tell her that part.
Not because I wouldn't want her prepared.
But because I wouldn't want knowing how something ends to change the way she lived while she had it.
Maybe We Never Really Leave Our Old Selves Behind
I used to think growing up meant becoming someone new.
I'm not sure I believe that anymore.
I think we collect versions of ourselves.
They don't disappear simply because another chapter begins.
The kid who loved being near the water is still here.
The girl who could disappear inside a book is definitely still here.
The teenager with strong opinions?
Oh, she's absolutely still here. 😂
But the people who helped shape those versions of us are still here in quieter ways, too.
In things we say.
In traditions we keep.
In stories we tell.
In photographs we can't bring ourselves to throw away.
Sometimes even in the way we remember a particular date.
And Then, Somehow, She Became the Author
There's something particularly surreal about putting an old photograph beside one of my books.
The distance between those two things looks enormous.
But it wasn't one giant leap.
It was thousands of tiny moments.
Experiences.
People.
Places.
Things lost.
Things found.
Stories heard.
Stories lived.
The girl in those photographs didn't know she was gathering material.
She was just living.
And maybe that's the thing I'm thinking about most today.
We rarely know we're standing inside a memory while it's being made.
We don't know which ordinary afternoon we'll someday miss.
Which photograph will become precious.
Which story we'll find ourselves telling again and again.
Or which pieces of the people we love will quietly become pieces of us.
Sometimes it takes years before we can see the story.
Sometimes it takes an old photograph.
And sometimes it takes a familiar date appearing on the calendar again.
Happy birthday, Papa Tom. ♡
Your turn.
Find an old photograph today and really look at it.
Not just at yourself—but at everything around you.
Who was there?
What had you forgotten?
What seemed completely ordinary then but means something entirely different now?
Maybe that's one of the reasons we keep photographs in the first place.
They remember things for us until we're ready to look again.
— Amber M. McLamb
Writer. Dreamer. Storyteller.
Always creating. ♡
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