How excited your mother and I were those many years ago,
when technology allowed us to film you, our baby girl,
your face wide-eyed and curious, saliva bubbling in your mouth,
making baby sounds that made us laugh, how we watched
those videos a few times and still laughed until, well, enough was enough.
How we took up the camera for your first walk from mama to the couch.
What delight! There were many firsts – first words, first haircut –
just so many firsts we captured of you with that camera.
But soon the videos were tucked away in a cupboard
and new technology made them obsolete.
There were expensive, complicated ways to transfer those films
onto new technology (and maybe it can still be done),
but we never got around to it.
Daughter, do you really want us to keep those old videos,
to watch over and over, your first walk from mama to the couch,
and all of the other firsts of your early life?
Would you watch them now in your thirties?
How about in your fifties? Would you still wonder at your
babyhood when you are in your seventies?
Or has your life moved on?
Is it enough, your videos and photos in the palm of your hand,
of friends and travel, of happiness and sadness,
of triumphs and trials, images to recapture an experience,
a memory, wondering if that technology too may also become obsolete?
