Lessons from a home movie

The lights dimmed, the projector switch flipped. A hot plastic smell wafted through the room as the clickity-clack of a Super 8 home movie began. Hubby and I were returning from our Yellowstone honeymoon, but had stopped in at my grandparents’ before embarking on the last leg of our journey home to Cloquet.

I had grown up here in this small, rural town, before my dad’s job plucked us out of the familiar black soil of North Dakota, transplanting us into the foreign red ore of the Iron Range. I was 14, introverted, and did not take the move well. I wept for weeks, maybe months, in scared anticipation of leaving everything I’d ever known. But pack our bags we did. Slowly over time, I adjusted, made new friends, and eventually met the boy I was destined to marry.

And here we sat, seven years after that fate-filled move — newlyweds watching home movies in Papa and Granny’s darkened living room. Before video, these 8mm movies had defined family stories. And home movies, with popcorn, were my Saturday night favorite. As children, we vicariously relived trips to places exotic and mysterious: my grandparents at the Seattle Space Needle, the San Diego Zoo. We witnessed my young parents kiss and wave at the camera. Smiled at toddler versions of ourselves as we dodged waves at Lake of the Woods. We even owned a couple of Woody Woodpecker cartoons.

Hubby had never seen any of these reels before, but remembers my face illuminated in the flickering light. Weeping. I recollect it differently, as I hate crying in public. But we both remember the scene in question. I was three, maybe four. A younger, thinner rendition of my dad twirled around in a circle holding onto my hands. Smiling, laughing. My feet arced through the air in semicircles as he spun me up and down, around and around — all filmed in slow motion. It was a scene straight out of a real movie — only missing the emotive musical score. But I sat there dumbfounded. Silent.

I not only had no memories of this reel, I had no memories of this event. Zero. In fact, I held very few memories of any fatherly affection. He was angry, critical, aloof. Wounded easily, I took it all to heart, feeling that I never did anything right, never measured up. Also shy and risk-averse, I was the exact opposite of my year-younger, more adventurous, outgoing sister who seemed to bask in my father’s approval. But I wasn’t her. I couldn’t be. I was me and I was a disappointment.

Yet, here, incredulously, before my eyes was evidence to the contrary. I continued to stare at this tender image, frozen in time, unable to reconcile what I was seeing with what I had always felt.

Many years later I was straightening my front entry when I distinctly heard a whisper that pulled me up short, “Honor your mother and father.” Honor my — what? For years, I had felt the sting of rejection, of thoughtless words. “How do you honor someone, God, who isn’t honor-ABLE?” “You can honor the office, if you can’t honor the man.” The position. Sigh. Fine.

From that point, I made the purposeful, intentional decision to write a note of thanks, a happy memory, or recognize good qualities in birthday cards, anniversaries, letters. Sometimes I had to dig deep, but the more I looked, the more I saw. Gentle, quiet memories lay buried under louder, painful ones whose screams had drowned out anything else.

I don’t know when it happened, because it kind of snuck up on me, but one day I realized I felt different. Changed. Free. I no longer harbored resentment, no longer had anything to prove. Somewhere along the journey, forgiveness had warmed and melted my icy, walled heart. The funny thing? As I looked back with my newfound, refocused perspective, I realized that the hurtful scenarios I had rehearsed were really much more about how I had internalized a false message of worthlessness rather than what had actually been said — or meant. As a parent of mostly grown children, I see how easily miscommunication happens. I KNOW how fiercely I love, but I also know that message isn’t always heard — sometimes because I do it poorly, other times because they, too, internalize or process situations incorrectly and believe lies.

The fourth anniversary of my father’s death rolled around this month. It reminded me again that people are here for a finite moment of time, and it’s important to live without regrets.

I never again saw that home movie, but one day I won’t even need projector and reel. I’ll be dancing with my father again. Face to face.

Cloquet’s Denise Hammond is married to her high school sweetheart and they have nine grown children. Movie dates with popcorn are still one of her favorites.