Pictures on a Horse and Buggy (a follow up to my last post)

In the 1950's and '60's our family travelled to Atlantic City for our annual summer vacation. We stayed in motels as close to the Boardwalk as possible. Our days spent on the beach and playing arcade games on the Steel Pier. I was a pretty good baseball player and spent many an hour and far too much of my parent's hard earned money trying to throw pitches through a small circular opening so, if successful, I could win a stuffed animal that I didn't even want.

Aside the Boardwalk there were blocks and blocks of small businesses trying to stay afloat. Tourists popping in and out to purchase a trinket or two along the way. The Turkish Taffy store always drew my eye and filled my belly. But among the many hundreds, there was only one our family was certain to visit each summer.

Inside it stood a life-sized replica of a horse hitched to a buggy. This was a photo studio, where one was invited to take the reins and have a picture of two snapped. The owner had assembled various hats and other clothing accessories so that one could be transformed into whatever character suited their fancy.

I was about three or so the first year we started this tradition. I had a crew cut, something I would keep well into my teenage years. My sister, four years my senior, was impossibly cute in the earliest of these photos. Next to her, our mom. And holding the reins, dad. In my favorite of these annual images, a top hat rests perfectly on his head.

Through the passing years, no matter what was happening in our lives, we returned to that studio, took our assigned positions, and commemorated not merely the passage of time but the immutability of our family bond. It was, for both my sister and me, far more than a  photo. It held not merely our images but our hearts.

My dad passed away in 1979. My mom not until 2017. My sister assembled all the years of photos together and framed them as one. They hung in her house and in later years, her apartment, as a vivid, visual reminder of the joys we had experienced throughout our childhood.

My sister died earlier this year. On the day of her funeral I was tasked with identifying her in the casket. I came armed with many items of significance in her life, all of which I placed gently beside her. Among these were those photos from Atlantic City.

Yesterday would have been our mom and dad's 79th anniversary. But it was the first one without my sister. The first one where the memories of our childhood, of our parents, of those motels, of Atlantic City reside only with me. The first where I am the last connection to those days, those feelings. The last thing remaining before those recollections disappear forever.

Yesterday, I felt an emptiness, a sadness. Without my sister, it can never again be as it was. Without my sister I am but the sound of one hand clapping. Without my sister it is far, far too silent. And lonely.