Poetry in a Northern Kitchen

Three Photographs and a Life Well Lived.

Every photograph tells a story.

Most of the time, we don’t realise it when the picture is taken.

We stand where we’re told, smile for the camera, and carry on with our day. Years later, we look back and realise the photograph captured far more than a face. It captured a moment in a life that was still unfolding.

Recently, I was shown three photographs of the same woman.

The first photograph showed a thirteen-year-old girl standing in her best dress. Her future stretched out before her, untouched and unknown. She had dreams, curiosity, and no idea how quickly the years would pass.

The second photograph showed a woman in the middle of life. By then, life had happened. She had loved, lost, laughed, worried, worked, and carried responsibilities that her younger self could never have imagined. The girl was still there, but experience had begun to leave its fingerprints.

The third photograph showed a seventy-five-year-old woman smiling warmly at the camera. The face had changed. The hair had changed. Time had done what time always does.

Yet somehow, she was still recognisably the same person.

Looking at those photographs made me think about how quickly life moves.

One minute we’re children waiting for adulthood to arrive. The next we’re adults wondering where the years went.

Along the way, the world changes around us.

Neighbourhoods change.

Old shops disappear.

Technology arrives.

Ways of life quietly fade into memory.

The things we once believed would always be there slowly disappear, often without us noticing until much later.

Yet some people carry something through all those changes that time cannot touch.

Kindness.

Curiosity.

Generosity.

The ability to care about other people.

Those qualities rarely appear in photographs, but they often tell us more about a person than appearances ever could.

What struck me most about these three photographs wasn’t how much the woman had changed.

It was how much of her remained the same.

The same warmth.

The same smile.

The same spirit.

The same willingness to help others.

Perhaps that is one of the greatest achievements in life.

Not avoiding change.

Not staying young.

Not holding on to the past.

But allowing life to shape us without allowing it to harden us.

The years change many things.

The best people never let them change everything.

Sometimes three photographs are enough to tell an entire life story.

Or at least enough to remind us that the person we once were never truly disappears.

They’re still there, looking out through older eyes.

Waiting patiently to be recognised.

To be continued…

Thank you for reading

Your DislexicPoet 🖤

Poetry in a Northern Kitchen