Family. There’s not much more important to me than that. The small boy is now old enough and interested enough to have recently started asking questions about where he’s come from and who he is. These pictures are the best reminders I have of the two awesome matriarchs I am descended from and the brave soldier and kind heart who was the Grandfather I never knew. 

I have a shelf full of these pictures, posed studio photographs from the 1940’s, snapshots from the 1980’s and printed off digital photographs from a week ago. A shelf of memories, a reminder that my family are made of stern stuff and when pushed, that I am too. 

Fall down seven times, stand up eight.