Just came across this amazing website: 

http://photooftheday.hughcrawford.com/

Here, you will find the polaroid photographs of Jamie Livingston.  He was a filmmaker, and beginning in March of 1979, he took a polaroid photo of his life and those people and things around him.  He documented the small, insignificant things — and the major things.  I was facinated, because this type of website brings out the voyeur in all of us, I think.

I started looking at the pictures, one by one.  Then, I started looking up significant dates in my life.  Like, July 25, 1987 — the day B. and I got married.  That day, Jamie was traveling (as signified by a female friend, standing in the United Airlines line of an airport).  Or January 30, 1987 — the day I turned 23, he must have been sick, as shown by a bottle of erythromycin.  The day my son Wes was born, Jamie took a picture of a woman by an apartment intercom system, and when my Kara was born, there’s a picture of an African American man and his cat.  When E. was born, he photographed a man by a “Guess Jean” street ad (New York City, maybe?).

But there’s no photo for when the little one was born.  Jamie Livingston died of cancer on October 25 or 26, 1997.  The last month of his life, he proposed, got married, and spent precious hours with loved ones and friends in his hospital room — all chronicled by his photographs.

Imagine … eighteen years of a person’s life, day by day, photo by photo.  The pictures left me breathless, not because they were amazing … but they brought back memories of my own life journey.  They brought to vivid realization that there are billions of people walking side by side through this thing we call life.  People I will never know, yet have the same aspirations I do.  People as important as the President, as insignificant as me.  All living, day to day.  Each day, thousands of journeys end — and thousands of new ones begin.

Jamie was smart.  He gave a lasting legacy to us who never had an opportunity to meet him.  Something deep and moving, which will rest within my heart for a long time — if not forever.  And although it’s probable he never intended such a thing, it still happened. 

I sit here breathless.  Moved by a man I never knew.  And greatful for the reminder of how precious each and every day is.