Discarded, Not Lost
- Jayne Lisbeth
- Apr 12
- 4 min read
I am in a twilight zone of random discoveries that change my life in small ways. My last Food for Thought Messages from a Diary was one episode. This is another.
My latest found object was a photograph discarded in the street which I discovered on my morning walk through Seminole Heights. The portrait is one of a shy-appearing woman, holding a cat. She might be in her thirties. She appears to have been talking when the camera recorded the moment. What was she saying? Why did I find her in the street, on my morning walk through Seminole Heights? Who discarded it?
I closely examine the stranger’s face. She obviously loves her cat, her prized and beloved companion. She holds her kitty snugly, who looks warily into the camera, as though she is about to escape. Yet, she remains within the embracing lap of her mom. The big tortoise-shell tabby seems to be saying, “This is my mom. Don’t mess with her, or you will feel my wrath.” Her mom is oblivious of her expression, as the camera, not her, captures her kitty’s warning.
I delve more deeply. The porch looks like a true Seminole Heights bungalow porch. Light green/aqua paint on old wood, maroon trimmed many-paned glass door, all signs of a typical 1920s bungalow. The woman wears white pedal-pushers and a floral sleeveless blouse. It must be summer. I turn the photo over and attempt to decipher a date, but can only discern 2003.
I can relate to this old picture. Years ago I created a book of my mother’s life, from her early 1900s childhood in Brooklyn, including the family farm in Syosset, New York around 1920. Life was so different then, from horse-drawn delivery wagons to trolley cars, which my mother and her parents took from Brooklyn to Syosset, the only means of available transportation to the Farm.
The snapshots came from albums dating back decades. At their recent visit I was thrilled to
watch my grandchildren and family examine these illuminations of their great-grandmother’s life. They intently read each page, touched each image, connecting themselves to this tangible part of their history. They had been less interested when they were younger. Now, they were enthralled with their great-grandmother’s early years. They recognized PS schools in Brooklyn which are still standing today, which they can visit.
Wanting to build on my mother’s history book of her early life I decided to create a new album of my grandchildren’s lives. I searched for photos which had recorded their lives, from their births to the current age of the eldest at fourteen. After all, kids love looking at themselves and their parents, frozen in time.
We have over forty albums over many years. As I dove into the flimsy mylar pages of each photo book I was captured by my own history. There were so many places, times and adventures. The physical photos abruptly stopped when technology changed and I began taking pictures with my phone. What could have been a simple wandering through the pages of old albums became a daunting task. Currently, this history is stored in various files on my phone, Google files, camera thumb drives and stacks of CD discs piled under my desk. What could have been a simple wandering through the pages of photo albums became difficult.
I chose the images I wanted to share, edited them, printing over 100. I let the ink dry before cutting each one to fit into my little family album. It took more than a week to retrieve everything that I imagined would mean something to my children and grandchildren. I was pleased with my accomplishment. Did modern technology make this task easier? No. Who would ever go through the hundreds, thousands of photos tucked away to discover family history? These photos would not be passed into their future unless I dug them out of the many hidden nooks and crannies of my life.
I am not a professional photographer, just a devoted amateur, as whoever had taken the photo of a stranger, sitting on her porch with her beloved kitty in her lap, was. Her picture survived and was discovered on a sidewalk. It became the impetus for this “Food for Thought.”
As a Boomer I cherish my fifties childhood archived in pages of family albums I can physically hold. I am reluctant to trust my history to an app. I’m not certain that progress is always a valuable road to our future. I am a heretic of the digital world, a lover of old photographs validating our existence in images on paper. A picture in hand is worth a million in an undisclosed file.
I am not part of the throw-a-way generation. When a toaster breaks I want to repair it rather than buy another one. However, finding someone to fix an old toaster is next to impossible. The woman on her lawn chair on a Seminole Heights bungalow porch smiles at me. I don’t know who she is. This small aspect of her life is tangible evidence of her existence. I can hold her and her kitty in my hand and wonder over this small discarded piece of her life. I can share a part of her, whoever she is. She is discarded, but not lost. I found her.
A trail was left, a witness to a brief moment in a stranger’s life. An image lasts, even if the woman and cat in the photo do not. A snapshot of her life lies in my hand in ways the world wide web will never do. Just as easily, someday an image of myself or a loved one might end up discarded and then found in the street.
Hang onto those old albums. Some random person, family member or friend may find the remnants of who you once were. You might stumble onto an otherwise anonymous life and find a story worth sharing.
Okay, I responded to this interesting story, but I don't know WHERE I posted it. Maybe you can find it "somewhere" in the ether. I do have tech issues on occasion. But I loved this blog.
Oh Jayne, how I do love this. Every time I bring out one of my photo albums that I kept up from a very young age until I was about 30, I think about how our memories our lost in this new world. The last twenty years of my photos are lost in a digital abyss. I keep meaning to go back and go through them and print and make more albums, but then I think what is the point when someone will surely throw them all away some day once I'm gone. You have inspired me to create some albums for the children though. Talk soon my friend!
Jayne, this moved me deeply. You've done something writers spend years learning how to do: you found a story in a discarded photograph and made us care about a stranger.
I've watched the shift from photo albums to phones, from letters to emails, from physical books to digital files. You're right to be wary. I've published hundreds of books over nearly fifty years, and I know this: what you can hold in your hands has staying power that pixels never will.
The woman with her cat isn't just discarded—she's rescued. You gave her a voice, a moment of consideration, a place in the world again. That's what writers do. That's what matters.
Your mother's photo album will outlast whatever's on…
Jayne, this moved me deeply. You've done something writers spend years learning how to do: you found a story in a discarded photograph and made us care about a stranger.
I've watched the shift from photo albums to phones, from letters to emails, from physical books to digital files. You're right to be wary. I've published hundreds of books over nearly fifty years, and I know this: what you can hold in your hands has staying power that pixels never will.
The woman with her cat isn't just discarded—she's rescued. You gave her a voice, a moment of consideration, a place in the world again. That's what writers do. That's what matters.
Your mother's photo album will outlast…
Hi Jayne. Preserving the past is important. My family keeps volumes of photos in chronologically-ordered books. Unfortunately, many of the early photos contain people whose names we don't know. We just know they're part of the family. Another excellent piece of writing.