Family Videos

Last fall, I pulled out all of our old family videos on VHS and started converting them to digital. I got through the ones that I could, but had to save a few as the tape wouldn’t work correctly in our VCR. This fall, I tried the tapes in Brett's VCR and still had no luck.  Instead of working with those couple from our set, I decided to sort through all of the videos that Jeannette had given me before she died. That project has left me with a lot of mixed emotions.

The Heinisch family started using a camcorder in the mid 1980s. Thus, there’s a lot of family videos that occurred before Doug and I even met. I thoroughly enjoyed seeing Doug, Dan, and Phil when they were younger. It was also incredibly nice to see Jeannette, Marion and Dorothy again. Overall, however, it was really strange sorting through another family's memories. In our family tapes, I was at most of the events and could remembered what was happening. I had loved the walk down memory lane with my family even though it sometimes brought tears to my eyes. Mostly though, I just appreciated remembering what it was like when our children were little. It was such a fun time in our lives.  

Sorting through another family's videotapes, however, almost felt voyeuristic. Carl was the videographer in every film that I watched of the Heinisch family these past few weeks. Thus, I am seeing his family through his eyes and that just feels strange. I also started to see patterns that I wouldn’t have noticed as an outsider. It was apparent in the videos that most of Carl's attention was on Dan, and very little attention was on Doug. I do not know why that was.  It could be their age difference. It also could be that Carl was more comfortable with Dan. The reason could even be that Dan loved being in front of the camera and that was why he was in so many of the tapes. In the end, I didn’t spend a lot of time thinking about it and instead just enjoyed the videos. I love Dan, so it was a lot of fun to see him as a little kid. I also realized that he and Cameron had the same voice at the age of 10 to 12. Therefore, whenever I would hear him talk on the video, I would have to turn my head and make sure that it was Dan and not Cameron on film. Not everything was about Dan as I did run across film of Doug playing soccer in high school and one of him giving a tour of his house at IU his sophomore year. I really enjoyed that, and I absolutely loved seeing him interact with Grandpa Brucker as well.

Mostly though, as I watched the videotapes this week, I actually felt kind of sad. The boys do not have the same relationship with their father that they had in the 1980s, especially Dan. The tapes also made me miss Jeannette and her parents very much. They were such a great support, and they loved their children and grandchildren immensely. My heart broke for them when I thought of what the last couple years had been like. Even so, I was incredibly thankful to have so many snippets of the Heinisch's family life in the 1980s. It was a great reminder of the Doug that I first met and fell in love with. I always think he hasn’t changed a bit but when I see those pictures I realize that he actually has. That’s not a bad thing. It’s just hard to believe that 30+ years have gone by so quickly.