The girl named "You"

Imagine your grandchildren finding your keepsake box, diary, or old photos someday. They stumble across a beautiful, unknown, person smiling and laughing. The angle of their poses in the photos taken through the eye of love and admiration. They found photos of their grandparent’s mysterious lover.

Life so odd to me when it comes to connections with other people. Whoever my friends or boyfriends are at the time are so important to me, and I capture that in the photos I take. But like most people in life, they go away and are suddenly insignificant strangers.

I always get sad walking through antique shops and fiddling through the random photo boxes. All those family photos in black and white, with people long gone from the world now. I always wonder who they were, what kind of life they had, and wonder how their personal photos ended up in a box being sold to strangers for a dollar. I always take the time to look at their faces and acknowledge their significance to someone, somewhere, in some time.

Recently, my brother has been cleaning out and renovating part of our mom’s house, which was her parents house before. In doing so, he’s found much of our grandparent’s belongings. Books, artwork, knickknacks, etc.

But when my brother came across a photo album hidden away in the walls of a closet, he became intrigued. The album wasn’t even half full.

A few front pages full of incredible photos of a young woman (and my grandfather), and then a sudden stop—left blank— and the book stored away, just like the memories.

My brother, even captivated by this stranger’s beauty, wanted to immediately put a name to the face. He gently took out each photo, flipping it over, to find her name written on the back.

In a group photo with a bunch of women, it lists off all the women’s names in order, but when it gets to her, it simply says “you.”

So You, whoever you are, we see you.