The old trunk of photo albums hadn’t been opened in at least ten years. The antique trunk was set aside in the corner of the living room as a focal point, with flowers laid over a piece of draped fabric. Alice forgot that photos were stored in the old trunk since her mom died. along with some of her handmade blankets and dolls.

One day her daughter Anna, who was now 15, opened the old truck to see what was in it. She always saw it as a piece of furniture and not a place of storage. As she opened the trunk, the scent of her grandpa’s cherry tobacco that he smoked in his pipe flowed through her nostrils like smoke that would have come out of a genie bottle. The scent of his tobacco brought back good memories of him reading stories to her while she sat in her little rocking chair and he sat in his high back chair in front of the fireplace eating grandma’s cookies and hot chocolate.

Alice walked into the living room. “Anna, you opened the old truck. Oh, my God, I smell my dad’s pipe tobacco.”

“I didn’t know you had photo albums in the trunk. This is so cool, Mom. Look, a photo of grandpa reading to me by the fireplace. I remember that so well.” Anna felt nostalgic and had a heavy heart that he had passed on.

“Well dear, it’s a good thing I kept all of these photos. We were a happy family, and even though we had some rough times, we were always a family who loved each other, and nothing can replace that. Love smoothed over all of the rough times.”

“Look at this photo of you and grandpa. I love this one. I’ve never seen it before. And this one on the pony that you told me he bought you. I’ve never seen some of these photos. Can I look at all of them?”

“Sure. Just don’t bend them and put them back where they were over the old blankets I saved. Grandma made those by hand. I have a pizza in the oven."

 Anna looked through every photo. She was overjoyed to see all of her cousins with grandpa, and her aunts and uncles. When she was through looking at all of the albums, she  put them back where they were and went into the kitchen to have some pizza with her mom.

“Did you look through all of the albums? I saved three of them. My sister took the other three albums. We shared the photos after grandma died.” Alice sliced the pizza and got some cold drinks.

“Yes, I looked at every photo. I loved the old brown looking photos. But there’s only one person I didn’t see in any of the albums, and it made me sad.”

“Sad? Whose photo did you miss that made you sad?”

“Grandma. I didn’t see one photo of grandma. Where was grandma? Why wasn’t she in any of the photos in the old trunk. I know she died after Grandpa. I remember both of them.”

“You didn’t see one photo of Grandma in three albums of photos? Not even one?”

“No, and I looked good at each photo. I know what she looked like.”

Alice thought about that for a minute and then she felt sad. “Oh dear.”

“What Mom?”

“Grandma was the one who always took the photos.”