Tems

'Remember me' is what the picture in my hands was telling me. It was a picture of a 12 year old girl I once knew, testing out her first camera. The girl in the picture had straight hair that cut off at the shoulders and a smile that showed off her crooked teeth, the shirt she was wearing hung loose from her broad shoulders and the blue jeans she was wearing looked ragged with rips. She held the camera low enough to where the reflection from the mirror would capture her face, rather than having it covered behind the camera. The girl in this picture looked welcoming and friendly, as though to say hello, but I know what she was really saying. She was telling me, 'Please don't forget me' and in reponse I thought, 'how could I possibly forget you?'' I couldn't forget her because the girl in this picture was me. 

As I dropped the picture back into the bin with the rest of the thousands of others that I kept in my closet, I couldn't help but feel nostalgic. The feeling of holding that camera for the first time came back to me, then I remembered trying to figure out all of the controls, and then I remembered the joyous feeling of having a camera that I knew was mine. I could feel the smile rise on my face and I thought it might stick that way. Even though it was a regular digital camera, it was small enough to go with me everywhere I went, and it captured the moments that I wanted to remember in detail. It became a part of me. I used my camera for every occasion - for birthdays,holidays,special outings,for school plays, and outingswith friends.

I pulled another picture out of the bin, it was one where I had taken a picture of my friends by the river. I let out a small laugh, because this was the last picture that my camera had taken before it met its tragic end. After I had taken this picture, my camera had slipped through a hole in my bag and landed in the river. When I fished it out of the bottom of the river, the only thing I could salvage was the memory card -...