Something already gone...?

I have this creeping sense that, in the future, looking at these pictures will be a wistful experience--sad and yearning, but not bitterly so.


These photos seem to me to capture a particular moment, of two people who already aren't quite the same as they were in the picture. When will Peter again wear two hats in such a silly way? How many more times will Miranda hold him like this on her top bunk? How long will they even be this particular size--in body, mind and soul? And how long before their relationship gets a lot more complicated than it is rendered here?

Sometimes I look at photos of youngsters, people about whose lives I might know a little bit, maybe something serious, grave, or even tragic, and I think, "You don't really have any idea of this thing 30 or 40 years down the road." None of us knows, of course, but I "see" it when look at those kind of pictures.

I obviously don't know what will happen for these two, but I've already been through enough with them to understand that very little works out the way I/they/we plan for it to, so I can generally and abstractly imagine the wistfulness of unfulfilled hopes, expectations, etc. I certainly hope and pray against overwhelming tragedy--the small tragedies in life are grave enough--and hope and pray that those inevitable disappointments are surmountable. But when those tragedies--big or small-- come, I suspect these will be two of the pictures I'll reminisce over.