Before and After – CoronaLife Day 110

We’ve experienced an abrupt before-and-after this year: life before COVID-19, and life after it. For those of us in New Jersey, the before-and-after delineation date came on March 14th, the date the schools were closed and life in quarantine began.

Many of us have adjusted to a new normal, this coronalife we are living for the foreseeable future. We are holding on to the knowledge that this, too, shall pass, for nothing lasts forever, no matter how it feels, and that someday there will be an “after” to this present “before.”

Today, though, I had some fun with Before and After. MyHeritage, a genealogy site, had a free trial of their photo enhancing software, which both enhances and colorizes photos. This in no way changes the originals, so the past is preserved. The original photos—dings, creases, and all—hold the weight of history, and I cherish them for the truth that they hold. But I also appreciate the colorized versions as a bit of fun and a chance to imagine more fully people I have never known.

First up I did my 4 grandparents. All but one had died before I was 5 years old, and of course I would not have remembered them as the young people they are in these photos.

Next I did my great-grandparents. I never knew my great-grandfather, but my great-grandmother lived to be 96, when I was 16. My only memories of her are as an old lady in a nursing home, certainly not the elegant woman in the photo.

I went back in time, to my 2nd-great-grandparents, who were a shepherd and his wife in northern Scotland (note the sheepdog in the photo), and my 3rd-great-grandparents. My 3rd-great-grandfather came over from Ireland in 1842, settled in Delaware, and married my 3rd-great-grandmother, a descendant of Colonial settlers.

I think my favorite photo was my grandmother and her 2 sisters. It’s a sweet picture to start with, but the colorization brought an angelic innocence to it that I find endearing.

So that was my before and after adventure for today. I maxed out my free trial, but I may do more later, depending on the price to do so.

What do you do to relieve the stress and monotony of coronalife? Stay safe, and let’s all work together to get through this “before” and into the “after” as soon as possible.

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