A PHOTO AND A PROPOSAL

My father looked skeptically at the printer as it slowly began to spit out the sheet of photo paper. He was an old man and had no patience for technological machines that he could not understand. Nevertheless, he quietly held his breath.

“This machine, it take a long time,” he finally said; mostly to himself than to anyone else.

It was the new millennium. It had come and gone, yet his advancing years had served him adequately. He could not complain. My father had reached the venerable age of eighty one. The paper in question, the one coming out of the printer, was a photo of his mother…the mother he had never really known. You see, my grandmother died when my dad was only four years old.

‘Complications arising from pneumonia”, the doctor had reported at the time.

That time was 1934, during the midst of the Great Depression and the place, was a tiny, Mediterranean village where the population was probably no more than my kids’ current high school. The roads were paved in cobble stones and the only means of transport was by slow, lazy donkeys. There was no hospital and the nearest doctor was in the next town, an hour away.

It was in this setting, with the winter snow falling outside, that my father was bitterly orphaned.

 My grandmother’s death greatly impacted upon the family, but none more so than on my father, who was the youngest child and to whom a mother was still a necessity. His own father, now had the added responsibility of raising three young children on his own, in a time when money was sparse and where basic necessities was all that the family could aspire to. It was no surprise, therefore, that when my grandmother died, she left behind, only a few, modest possessions. One of which, was an old photo of herself.

The only photo, ever taken of her.

Fast forward several decades, and my father eventually married, had two children of his own and subsequently migrated to a foreign country. The photograph of his mother travelled with him also!

As a kid growing up, I was fascinated by my grandmother’s photo, solely because it was like none that I had ever seen before. Developed on a postcard size piece of cardboard, it wasn’t really a photo, but rather a negative print. All that could be distinguished was a negative image of a woman standing in her front yard, surrounded by an array of potted plants. But it was her eyes. Those ghostly, pale eyes that seemed to pierce my own.

“Something must have gone wrong when it was being developed”, was the only explanation that anyone could provide, when I took it to a number of imaging centers throughout the years. To say I was fascinated with that picture would have been an understatement. Pictures certainly speak a thousand words and in this one, my grandmother was certainly speaking to me. I just didn’t know what she was trying to tell me yet.

 Nevertheless, I often kept staring at this black and white image of my mysterious grandmother. As deeply as I looked, I could not distinguish any facial features or details. Instead, a cold, ghostly image vacantly stared back. Many times I would wonder what this woman looked like. Did we share any resemblance? Did I have her eyes, her nose, her smile? All this remained a mystery to me for the longest time.

As it inevitably happens though, life passes by. The photo of my grandmother was eventually stored away in a box with a collection of other, timeworn photos. They, in turn, were placed in a cupboard and were all but forgotten. Eventually, I moved out, married and had a family of my own. 

Years have passed since then. Today is cold and miserable, but it’s the perfect day to carry on with the arbitrary task of upgrading our home computer system. With empty boxes sprawled across the floor, I frustratingly assemble all the hardware. Out of nowhere, a small icon catches my eye. I notice that the computer's scanner has a feature which converts a scanned photo into a negative image. There is a magazine lying on the desk. I turn to a random page and quickly scan a wanton photo. I click the icon a second time, and the negative image changes back to the original photo.

“No!” I think to myself. “It can’t be that simple!”

I reluctantly pick up the phone and call my father.

“Dad, that old photo of your mother, the one that’s packed away in a box, I need you to bring it over. I want to try something.”

“What you want to try for, wit that picture?” After nearly forty years in Australia, my dad’s English was still not the best.

Slowly, I explain to him the icon on my computer and what I was proposing to accomplish.

“If that icon changes normal photos into negative images Dad, I wonder what would happen if I scanned a negative image and clicked onto the icon? I’m thinking it might show us what your mum really looked like on the day that photo was taken, all those years ago.”

Dad didn’t really understand, but he brought the photo to my house nonetheless.

“This machine, it take a long time”, he finally said, mostly to himself than to anyone else.

He turns to leave the room, but catches a glimpse of my frozen face. Ever so slowly, a black and white image of a woman begins to appear from the printer. A real image, not a negative impression. I’m unable to hide my delight. Finally, after all these years, I am able to see what my grandmother really looked like. Her eyes are no longer ghostly, but kind yet proud.

With a smile and a trembling hand, I pass this precious piece of paper to my father. I finally understand what it was, my grandmother was trying to say to me. She wanted this final connection with her son - and she wanted to meet her granddaughter.

I look at my dad. Tears fall from his ageing eyes, as he stares once more at his mother.

The mother he hadn’t seen since he was a child.