Still

In 2008, after fourteen years of starts and stops, I finally earned my bachelor’s degree.

To celebrate, someone very special gave me a graduation gift I could never have known would become more precious with time.

Kala Gaudet took my boys for a photo shoot.

I doubt she knows that three of the photographs she gave me in 2008 are still hanging on my wall.

In fact, they are the only childhood photographs of my boys still hanging on my wall.

And they always will be.

There are newer pictures, of course.

Thousands of them.

Birthdays and graduations and vacations and Christmas mornings.

Pictures of little boys becoming teenagers and teenagers becoming men.

But Kala’s three photographs have stayed.

One of them has always been particularly precious to me.

Ty, my oldest, was 14 when it was taken.

Benjamin was only 10.

In the photograph, they hold hands and walk down a brick path.

Benjamin is looking toward his big brother, gently guiding him along.

Ty has Down syndrome, so the usual roles of big and little brother have often looked a bit different in our family.

Benjamin may be the little brother, but somehow, even as a young boy, he understood when he needed to lead.

He understood when Ty needed space to build his independence.

He also understood when Ty simply needed a hand.

And he gave him his.

Always.

A few weekends ago, eighteen years after that photograph was taken, we found ourselves back at the same place.

We hadn't gone there to recreate a photograph.

We went there to eat at the restaurant.

But as we walked around, I remembered.

That picture.

That brick path.

My boys.

And suddenly I wanted it again.

So I put them back in roughly the same place and explained what I wanted them to do.

I don’t think Ty understood what was happening.

But, just as he had done eighteen years earlier, Benjamin took his big brother's hand and guided him.

And their mama got her picture.

A treasure.

There they are now, side by side on my phone, 2008 and 2026.

The little boys are gone.

One is 33.

The other is 28.

Their hands are bigger.

Their lives are different.

So is mine.

But I look at those two photographs and see something that time didn't change.

Benjamin and Ty still love each other.

Benjamin still knows when to help.

He still offers his hand.

And more importantly, Ty still trusts him enough to take it.

Always.

When Kala gave me those photographs for my graduation,

I doubt she could have known that one particular image would become even more precious as the little boys in it grew into men.

She couldn't have known what she was preserving for me.

Neither could I.

We don't always know which of the things we do for someone will last.

Maybe that's true of so many of the things we give each other.

A kindness we barely remember.

A hand we held.

A moment that seemed ordinary at the time.

We give moments away without knowing which ones another person will carry for the rest of their life.

I spent fourteen years earning the degree that occasioned that graduation gift.

Four years later, I earned a master's degree.

But neither diploma hangs anywhere.

Kala’s photographs do.

And they always will.

And after all these years, I am still the woman adoring my precious sons.

Still grateful.

Still amazed.

Still honored beyond measure to be their mother.