Captured. Again.

There are pictures with the kids.

Pictures where he's acting like a kid.

Adult humor pictures.

And not so adult humor pictures.

There's a lot of those. Sleeping pictures.

And lots of still lifes of co-mingled stuff that stand for so much more.

After two years there are (literally) hundreds of pictures. And there's been lots of comments lately about all the crazy/nutty/funny/ and downright exhaustive number of pictures that I take of him. Some time ago he recalled my previous post about pictures of him ("Captured") wrong. That one was from my perspective about why I needed to take so many pictures and he remembered it saying I don't know why he likes a lot of pictures but that's not what it said at all.

I know very well why he likes a lot of pictures. Besides the fact he's a ham with a side of ham, huge chunks of his past are lost, gone forever. Between the head injuries, drug abuse, imprisonment and more moves than the US Army, it-both the memories and nearly all tangible reminders-is all gone.

I can't restore those pieces, no one can, but I can capture the now, the tiny bit of his life that is shared with me. No matter how silly or prosaic-this week it was the first pepper we picked from the garden and a ridiculous one of him in a cowboy hat & boxer shorts-my camera is ever ready. It pins my social butterfly down and captures him, if only for an instant, in the life he has now. I can't bring back all he lost but today, today will be preserved.