Scrapbooking Helped Healed My Heart

By:Kristen Haywood

For many years, the memories of my childhood were vague and dark. My brothers, sister and I spent many years with a mother who battled the demon of alcholism. Her drinking started when we were very young, so most of our memories were full of pain. She and my father divorced when we were teens, and for some reason, we remained estranged for over 20 years. I guess the wounds were too deep for any of us to confront.

My mother passed away in November 1999. In her last few days, my younger sister went to be by her side. My sister returned with a photo album filled with long lost pictures of 4 very young and HAPPY children. Apparently, my mother had inherited all of the photos that my grandmother had taken when we were very young children.

Each of these photos contained a part of the past that was long forgotten. I found a photo of my mother hugging me, one of her smiling sweetly at her new baby with another little one at her knee, one of her tying her son's shoes, one of her standing with her four babies on vacation. So many photos of her trying to be a good mom, it was overwhelming! It quickly became apparent and important that I scrap these photos. I spent two months creating albums for both of my brothers and one for my sister. (I still have mine on the to-do list.)

It felt so good to find those happy memories and work through all that pain. Often, while staring at a photo for an idea, a tear would fall down my face. Each finished page helped me put aside more and more of the past and helped me gain a new perspective of my mother. I found tremendous peace working with those happier memories.

I will never completely understand what happened to my childhood, but scrapping the past was so healing. It felt so good to set aside all the dark memories to make room for good ones. Scrapping helped me focus on the better times and put my childhood into much better perspective.




Tomorrow at dMarie Daily: Inspiration, by ~Brandy Ann, Taylorsville, UT