It was my parent's 25th anniversary on February 14th. My sister and I decided we wanted to get them something really special because we usually lack creativity when it comes to their anniversary gift. A few weeks before I was talking to my cousin about old home movies her dad had transferred to DVDs. He was always the one with the video camera at every family function and is a master at all that stuff! Then I thought, how nice would it be to have all these home movies for home so my parents and my sister and I could watch them whenever we'd like. I could do the converting and copying, while my sister could rock the iMovie transitions. It took us probably a total of 100 hours to complete this gift, but it was so worth it once it was finished and we presented it to our parents this past Saturday evening.
We all snuggled on the couch in the family room, and popped in the first DVD. At this point, my parents still did not know exactly what it was. Up came a video my sister and I just recorded..
Gabrielle: "Hi Mom and Dad!"
Me: "Happy 25th Anniversary!
We aren't exactly sure when you two first met,
but let's start with this..."
..As we faded away and up came a home movie from 1989 of my entire family getting ready to jam out on a tiny keyboard, buckets for drums, a guitar they didn't know how to play, and my cousin who was two or three at the time had a microphone in hand. My mom was pregnant with me at the time, so I guess you could say I was kind of there, too!
My parents laughed and were so surprised. They kept asking how we got this, when we did this, and so on. But we just wanted them to continue to watch because we had plenty more to see!
As the night went on, my dad eventually had to hit the sheets but Mom, Gabrielle, and I stayed up until 4am finishing them off. The next morning I heard dad in the family room watching them by himself and I decided to pop a squat and join him. Even though I just finished watching them all the night before it didn't matter because my favorite part was seeing and hearing my parents reaction to what they were watching. They'd say things like "Aw, you're so cute", "I remember that day, we did ______ and you were ______ and it was ______ that day", and "Oh my, I still have that shirt in my closet!"
As I watched with both my parents, I kept realizing how many memories were flowing back to them when they saw all these movies. It seemed as if to them it was practically yesterday when all this went on. Whereas, I could not remember hardly anything I saw. It really got me thinking just how special your parents are to you. They knew exactly who you were before you even knew yourself. We don't remember when we were born, or our first birthday, or that family vacation you took when you were three. But our parents remember it, and they don't just remember it happening... they remember even the tiniest of details. They remember who you were, what you feared, what made you smile, what your favorite food was, what toys you played with, the nightmares you had, how to get you to fall asleep, the places you traveled to, your first word, your first steps.
Your parents have known you for as long as you have lived,
and nobody can ever know and love you the way that a parent does.
x's & o's
-Ali Bee
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