PHOTOGRAPHS

Our memories would fail us to remember—pictured perfectly—our lives as they pass before our eyes. 

I am sure you want to run down memory lane and see how beautiful your childhood was. When you do not feel loved, you want to steal from those experiences of the past and maybe giggle as you did that night your dad threw you in the air and all your problems fizzled into the atmosphere and you landed into his arms. Those arms saying "hey, I gat you".

If you've ever lost a loved one, the only thing you would have left are memories. Those are the things that consistently remind us of them. Just like in the Disney Animation "COCO", when no one remembers you in the real world, you fade away in the spirit world. Even if it's fiction, it sends a strong message. 

The only thing they could use to remember the spirits on earth were their achievements, the moments they spent with them, the experiences that came out of them and PHOTOGRAPHS.

This creation of man is man's perfect way of immortalizing men. Although not there you could look at that picture and have the same rush of emotions as though the person were there standing and smiling at you. 

What about you? I mean, don't you want to know how you reacted when your mum bought you your first doll? Don't you want to know if you ever cried? Don't you want closure? Don't you want to see your siblings and you playing together? When you stare at those still images—though still in your hands—they run a thousand miles into your heart and wake up the other memories and sometimes you are left smiling, laughing or even trying to re-establish contact.

The past could be ugly, but there are jewels there for us to learn from. Let's not forget so quick those decisions we made at those conferences. Pictures would remind us. 

Let's not forget how we wanted to touch the world through science at our first show-and-tell, or science fair or our first bible recitation, or our first practical. Pictures would remind us.

Let's not forget how we wanted to be televangelists and we played dress up to suit that image. We would arrange bottles as though they were our congregants and preach the message of our lives in the most incoherent manner. Pictures would remind us.

Or when we wanted to be models, singers, chefs, astronauts, or even a Tomato seller? Those experiences that we lost in the past due to how we cannot regurgitate them from our memories and chew on them as we sit still like animals with four stomachs. 

Remember that time you stole your mum's makeup and played dress up? You dressed like you were her. You so wanted to be an adult not to suffer; but to be able to fulfil your dreams just like you thought your parents were fulfilling theirs. 

Let's not forget those 'firsts', those defining moments in our lives. Those moments that changed our thinking. Let's not forget those days in Abbaly’s house for the first time, or the first time you entered Absu and stayed in Salvador, and the first time you led worship in showers of Grace, and the first time you met James, Kingsley, Stanley, Bank Richards, at science block. Let's not forget Wizzy woo woo, and Mama Kach, Or even Prinny.

Let's not forget the first time you met Elendu, or Onyeagba, or the first lecture at lecture east.

kent, remember the first time you met Ptee?
Chinaza, remember how we first met?
Miss chin chin...! 
Argh! I can't help but be grateful for the people i met and how they disrupted my life and pushed me to be better. 

All these moments define us. You can learn a lot about you by looking back. You can also learn how to go, from looking back.

Let's not forget our first heartbreak, and our love at first sight. Our first kiss and how we regretted it. Our first sex and how much we hated ourselves. Let's not forget what it had turned us into. Let’s look back and see where we came from. There is still hope. 

Let's not forget the glow we had in our eyes and the hope in our childlike soul. Pictures would remind us.

Let's not forget family. Pictures would remind us.

And for those things in our past that we want to let go, like in the movie, we can burn it away, or in this modern case, delete it. So that when nature and time wears off the mental image, there would be no physical camaraderie of that image to awaken its comrades.

So, by all means, take loads of photographs and videos. Let them be your eyes as you return to the past to see how stupid you were, how much fun you had, the people who are in your life and how they have grown, the people who left your life and why they left. The kind of people you should allow henceforth. How much progress you made and how grateful you should be.

  

Take lots of pictures for this purpose. Live a life full of adventure, learning, growth, strategy and Thanksgiving. 

You dey feel me?