Treasure

I discovered an old blue suitcase when we moved my mom earlier this year. It was a suitcase full of treasure. Not a kind of loot I could take to the bank, or sell at an auction...the kind of treasure that has no estimable dollar value. The kind of gold that makes your heart skip a beat- and then beat 3 times faster.

The kind of treasure which gives proof to all the stories you heard as a child.
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I found a suitcase full of negatives.
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Like any good treasure I had to sit for hours and sort though piles of stuff. Ages spent looking at one reversed image after another. My mom was born in 1950 and I had never seen a photo of her taken before 1953. My grandparents were, supposedly, mad and smoochy in love when they ran away to get married. Grandma was 17 and I think Grandpa was 19 or 20.

mom, summer 1950

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Grandpa was in the service and they went to Hawaii when my mom was 8 or 9. I saw her grass skirt a long time ago, and held her Hawaiian baby doll with long black hair and dark skin when I was a small child. I think mom still has the Hawaiian baby doll, but many other things disappeared in the divorce, and in the 3 moves from the big house my family owned, before it too was lost. The old blue suitcase survived though.
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There were images of my grandparents I had never seen before. I believe there are a few pictures of my great grandmother who was a half-blooded American Indian. (Blackfoot maybe?)
I will ask my mom if she knows who they are...but I have to wait. I'm presently having the negatives scanned ($5.00 each!) and then printed, and I am making a family album for my mom for Christmas.
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I can be patient for a little bit longer, but if you want to know what I'm up to these days- here is a little glimpse.

It's my mom, on the big Island, in her grass skirt.
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Talk about a treasure!