gifts left behind

On Saturday night, my brother- and sister-in-law and their family came to visit. My brother-in-law brought along a bunch of old videos he had discovered in a forgotten box. One was labeled "David and Becky's Wedding." We were thrilled, because we had lost the video of our nuptials directly after the wedding, 19 years ago.

We popped it in the machine and took a look. It turns out it was not the video we had lost. The videographer on this one was my sister-in-law's dad, George, who passed away a year ago this week. The wedding seems far away in time, none of us remembered that he had done this filming.

So we had a chance to see the day from George's perspective. He panned around the reception, stopping here and there to capture groups of partying young people and men standing in groups, smoking. He filmed his talented sons playing excellent music as members of the wedding band. The camera lingered for a long time on his beautiful wife, Nancy. And then we heard George's familiar voice calling out "Hi, Bing!" as he zoomed in on his beloved daughter, the one who, 18 years later, put her life on hold to live with her mom and dad and helped to care for George as he slowly, yet all too quickly, left.