If one cared enough to check our family group photos in our old albums (do they still have them in this digital age?), you would notice that the elders are prominently seated out in front and/or the center of the group. No contest, this was as formal as could be, since time immemorial even.
We still have an original print of an ancient photograph of my grandfather as a child, taken between 1901 (his year of birth and for trivia, that of the Springfield rifle) and 1905. As it is, he stood in the foreground, while his elders sat smack in the middle of the other family members. Quite clearly, there must have been no debate back then, it’s still the same now… tradisyon brutal.
Now, to show what I mean, we would first have to visit the old mothership again (my parents’ place) and sift once more through aged photo albums, so we could collate our many family pics, stating from our grader years up to the present time. The travel through time will be worth it.
Anyway, I still vividly remember during the very early years when us graders were still in our khaki blues. We would always be propped up in the foreground while our parents and grandies occupied the mid center, often seated, while standing at the back row, they’d be flanked by my elder brother and sister. No matter what the year, the elders either sat or stood middle and that was the unwritten rule. And at no time was the order changed.
Even up till the present time, this blocking had survived to be the only constant when it came to family group photo sessions. For everyone else save our parents, they posed where they pleased, or for that matter, squeezed as the family had thru the years turned into a clan and just kept growing. However, as one would guess it, the ‘middle ground’ had remained reserved for the elders forever.
Like a warped version of Trip to Jerusalem, the occupants of the middle seats had slowly changed, a bit at a time. Much like life itself, the composition of the characters in the pics read less but then more. An uncle or aunt, a brother or a sister would be gone from the frame, only to be replaced on the next year by a either new face or a babble of newborn babies.
In turn, these grow into teens and much later, with babes of their own, they smile and pose for the latest family group memento. The photos change as the years.
During the last group picture, this time on the occasion of March birthdays, a niece had gently guided me towards the direction of waiting chairs while the commotion to fill the sala was ongoing. “that’s where elders belong, she said in the vernacular.“ And so it. And so it shall be.
