What memories are you carrying inside your mind that can’t be captured by a photograph?

The way you felt when you kissed someone for the first time.

The memory of the day you first experienced the death of a loved one.

Your first day of school and how the butterflies danced inside as you broke in your fresh new pair of back to school jeans.

The sweet ache of a fall day in the rain when you were in love with a boy or girl, and the romantic daydreams that held you.

The time you visited the Cloisters in upper Manhattan with your nieces and your youngest niece needed a hug because she was sad her parents were divorcing.

We live on this earth such a brief time. When we die, and when the ones who come behind us go – all those memories, feelings, images, love, and romance – or just the boring dripping time of everyday life that unfolded and passed – go with you.

The moments that grabbed your heart in a way that made you feel heaven – will all go away.

There will be pictures left behind, videos and albums. But will there be words? Will words express the coffee you had in that dreamy cafe in London? Will those pictures breathe true life into how you were feeling when you took that selfie on the EuroStar to Paris? Or what happened on that camp trip in Arizona? Your iPhone captured the hilarity of catching your partner behind a tree with his pants down to his ankles – but what happened afterwards? What was the laughter or anger like?

Do you want to remember? Yes? Of course! Don’t let the content of the mind’s memory bank fade away.

No? Why? Was the pain of a memory so bad, the intensity placed a wall, blocked it forever? Okay. Perhaps we should forget the bad memories and the sticky stuff of life. However,  painting a faint stroke of the bad makes us explore the good. It  makes us realize the person we’ve become today.

Photos are beautiful. As a visual person by nature, I’ve marveled at the power of a photo as it delves into the spiritual aspect of a moment, the stillness in time,  the thrust of a muscle on hold, the grin and laughter frozen in a millionth of a second.

A photo can express words and thought with just a click. The churning feelings behind the images we will leave behind in digital folders and clouds on the internet universe are there forever, and will remain so until after we are gone.

Indeed, a picture can tell a whole story, but the words a human being writes expressing the moments before and after the “click” can provide the screenplay to the entire film. The question will always remain: what happened after you took that picture? What memories are you carrying that can’t be captured by a photograph – memories that will disappear the day you leave this earth?

Tell your story. Write your words.