This is a story of what happens when you combine a mother and daughter, quarantine, video chat, and numerous photo albums spanning 50 years.

My mom is an avid photographer. Throughout my entire life (and before) she was always there to capture all the big moments: birthdays, holidays, travels, weddings, and all the “first” experiences. Now, many of you remember that photography was much different back in the 70’s and 80’s than it is today. You had to develop the film to see the pictures. Looking back, I fondly remember my mom labeling and adding the pictures into photo albums. As years passed the albums kept accumulating, and she would just add them to the others in a corner of her (very large) walk-in closet. And for decades they just sat there.

Before I continue with my story I would like to give you a little background on my mom. She has her Master’s degree in education and spent many years as an educator. Like many women from her time, once she had children she decided to put her career on hold and become a fulltime mother. After my brothers and I moved out, she decided to go back to teaching as a substitute teacher. This quickly turned into a fulltime job, and she LOVED it.

Enter COVID-19 and the stay at home order. My mom is 75 and considered high risk because of her age, so there was no question in our minds that she had to put teaching back on hold. In the beginning, she used the time to do some of the things she had postponed due to her busy life, like finishing the children’s book she wrote and now needed illustrations. But as the months passed, she started to become very lonely. My dad, a physician, was still going to work and seeing patients, so my mom was alone all day.

We began talking more and more on the phone and then started video chatting so we could see each other’s face. We live on opposite coastlines so visitation was out of the question, for obvious reasons, and the reality of it was starting to wear on us both. I tried giving her ideas for things to do, and the biggest one was for her to start downsizing her closet. This started as a joke after her closet racks collapsed from the pressure of having too much clothing. Now, I know many of you are thinking, “There is no such thing as too much clothes,” but I’m talking about decades of clothing piled on top of each other. After much convincing, she finally agreed. But again, like many good procrastinators, she became easily distracted when she came across her first photo album.

I remember her telling me about finding stacks upon stacks of photo albums in the back corner of her closet. She said she pulled one out and started looking at it, and I noticed she had the greatest smile on her face. I mentioned that I wished I could see, and we came up with the idea to use the video chat. From there our life review photo album journey began…after, of course, teaching my mom how to flip the screen and hold the phone steady. It quickly became a daily routine that we both were excited for, and my other family members (mostly my dad) were quickly taking notice.

Because there was no particular order to my mom’s stacks of photo albums, we never knew which album we were opening. What would we see today? What decade, place, or life adventure would it be? “Oh, here is the one from my 40^th birthday that my friends surprised me with,” my mom would say. Or “Oooh, here is your father when he was in college, sooo handsome.” Also, I have to admit, I really enjoyed going through my mom’s high school yearbook. There was something about seeing my parents at an age that is younger than I am now, that I can’t explain, but it helped put some things into perspective.

Looking back its very hard to choose which albums were our favorite. Between my baby pictures, moving into my awkward adolescent life stage in the 80’s (which brought up a question I had to ask my mom, “Why she let me leave the house looking like that” and she replied, “You never listened to me”…she was right), then off to college, and getting married…They were all great in their own way and we both experienced them differently. It was so interesting because often times we remembered things or people that the other didn’t, and sometimes even stories came out that we never told each other…like that time I had a party when they were out of town…yeah, she knew about it.

Here we are, nine months since initial shutdown from the pandemic, and even though we aren’t doing it every day like we did in the beginning, my mom is still finding photo albums stashed away. My parents just celebrated their 50^th wedding anniversary and we had so much fun looking at the wedding album. We are still hoping she finds the one of their honeymoon.

I wanted to share this story with the hopes that maybe someone out there who is in a similar situation could  benefit from life review like my mom and I have. Also to shed some light during these dark times of COVID-19.

Lisa Rill, PhD

Executive Director, Senior Life Source