I’ve always thought of scrapbooking as an old ladies activity.  You know, they spend their hours squirreling away old photos along side strips of cloth, kids drawings, and hand written notes.  The books often end up on coffee tables or sitting on a shelf gathering dust.  This weekend made me realize that’s not the whole truth.

My brother has ALS, my uncle has terminal cancer, and no one getting any younger or healthier, that’s really what brought it home for me.  Visiting with them this weekend, I had the opportunity to sit and chat with said uncle and his wife, my favorite aunt.  They invited me to check out a scrapbook their son had made.  Not just any scrapbook, but one focused around me, my sister, and my brother.

Cousin Connie has put together a scrapbook of photos covering mostly the early years of our lives. There are pictures there from newborn till teens.  Black and white photos sit alongside Kodachrome shots.  You won’t find in this book odds trips of cloth though, or cryptic personal notes, the book is about us.

The why of the book is more important though.  Connie didn’t prepare this book for us, my siblings and I, it was prepared for the future family.  That’s right. It’s not about those of us who lived it, it’s for those that come after.

Connie has a barely two year old daughter, my brother has three young children, and I already have grandchildren. The scrapbook, it’s for them.  It’s not for friends today, but for future friends. It’s going to tell our story, or bits of it anyway, in the simplest form, pictures.

The great thing is you can create these same mementos yourself.  You don’t even have to take a scrapbooking class. You can start today.  I’m going to give you a shopping list and a plan.

Let’s go shopping

• scrap book – not a photo album – but one with white or black pages  – 1 or more
• scissors – 1 pair
• glue – several tubes
• paper – regular blank paper – several sheets
• pens – various colors – black works though – choose to taste
• photos – lots, many, a zillion

Now with those things in hand comes the hard part – choosing.  Your goal isn’t to stuff every photo you’ve ever taken into a book. This isn’t going to be a an album.

You are going to curate the past. Your audience isn’t current friends and family. Remember, this is for the future.

The pictures you choose will tell a story about the people in the photos.  As you cull through the stack of photos, don’t think even about a timeline, think about a story you want to tell about that person.

• who are/were they? doctor, athlete, musician?
• where were they? Asia, Europe, Hoboken?
• what did they love? music, dance, art?
• did they have a life work? healing, crafting, adventure?

In Connie’s book, I’m show in the Philippines, California, and finally Missouri. I’m shown as a child hooked on family, and who enjoyed a variety of places to live. It shows me with friends not all white, but Philippine and Mexican and Asian. The photos though don’t cover every waking moment, nor every event.  It’s Connie’s perspective on my child hood, what he found important to pass on.  It will be a legacy our families’ future generations.

New viewpoint in hand, I wonder where to start my own scrapbooks.  I wonder what stories I’ll tell for my grandchildren to enjoy.

Todd ‘tojosan’ Jordan is a father of two and grandfather to three. He’s been a father for 25 years and counting, and still learning what that means.  He can be found on Twitter, and on his own blog, The Broad Brush.