Ode to a Frame

5 lifetimes ago, in a faraway city, in a faraway state, I was pregnant with my dear, sweet Alice.  As Billy and I walked around the Memorial City Mall, we visited Brookstone, where he bought me one of my favorite gifts of all time: a digital photo frame!

A few days before Valentine's Day, my frame started to make a clicking noise, but still slowly portrayed all of the images of all of our travels and so many memories.  Then, on Valentine's Day, it died.  I watched as the pixels slowly faded from the top left corner of the screen until finally fading from the bottom right corner and go completely dark. 

After many times of pushing the buttons to "wake it up," despite knowing that it would no longer show the smiling faces of my family, I drew a "dead face" so that I would let the poor frame rest in peace.

The next time I entered the kitchen, William had added a Tombstone, commemorating its life of service to our family.

By the next morning, a bouquet of (Kroger, no less) flowers had been placed by Emily.

Grace contributed a battery powered candle to the growing memorial.

After reporting each addition to the text thread with my mom and sisters, Sarah wrote a moving eulogy for our dear, dead, electronic.

The text reads:

"In Memory of a Loved Frame

By Aunt Rocky

We spend today in remembrance of Tami's first digital picture frame.

It gave its life in service to countless (likely in at least the 10's of thousands) pictures of the Crocker children, wedding pictures, maybe even pictures of pepper (no one knows why).

It should be noted, that William did not break this frame, and its durability is part of the reason it will be fondly remembered.

It should also be remembered that the frame, despite being older than 4 or 5 of the gaggle of children, and such longevity is unlikely to be matched again.

The frame is survived by the entire Crocker family. It was preceded in death by 4-5 dishwashers, 2 refrigerators, 2 washers, a sump pump, and a few dozen computers. 

Memorialization will be permanently found on page 100-something of Tami's blog book #15 or 18."

Billy did not contribute to the crazy, but did his part and ordered me a replacement frame, which arrived yesterday*.  = )

It's slightly bigger than my old one, but I didn't lose any functionality, so it will do.  Here it is showing a beautiful, smiling, toddler Emily. = )

Dear frame, you are gone, but not forgotten.

later days

*the same day the dishwasher repair man came.  So now I have an operating frame and dishwasher and feel beyond spoiled!