When Delta Dawn came up on the radio, it was as if my Aunt Sandy was sitting in the car beside us. Maybe it was because she named her daughter Dawn. Maybe it was because she liked to sing. Probably it was because she told me she looked like Helen Reddy. I remember it not because I was so sure that it was true, but I liked the confidence. She didn’t say, “People have said…” or “I think maybe I…” No, she came right out with it — “I look like Helen Reddy.” I’m still smiling. It’s just a snapshot of a moment. I don’t have many. And certainly no photographs. But I have this. And I can play it whenever I want. I’m humming the memory right now.

We didn’t take photographs. Maybe it was because my mother didn’t want to be on either side of the camera. Maybe we didn’t have the money, or the inclination. But moments were captured. In heart and mind. With each song that comes up on the radio, I can tell you where we were, with confidence. I can name the time, place, and food. The clothes worn. And can feel the picture between love’s thumb and first finger. Never to fade.

Maybe it’s easier now to take the photos. We all have cameras in the palm of our hands. No cost. No film. And I take many, it’s true. But I’m happy I didn’t grow up with a phone camera. I think it would have been too easy to rely on it. I had to find other ways. Work other muscles of living, of memory. What a gift to have them at the ready now. No swiping for hours to find that image. To release that feeling. I don’t have to find the nearest Starbuck’s to use their free wi-fi in search of a treasured memory. It’s within. Ever.

As we drive from state to state, Dominique learns a little bit more of my family. Marty Robbins began to sing and we are at my Grandma Elsie’s kitchen table. In a rare moment, talking like girlfriends. About love, like girls do. I asked her if she ever loved anyone else but grandpa. She just smiled. That was for her heart to know. As the music played she asked me what singers I loved. She didn’t know any of them. I asked her which famous person she loved, who she would leave Grandpa Reuben…before I could add the word “for,” she shouted “Marty Robbins!” I don’t know how long she had that in the holster, but it was at the ready! We laughed hard. Waist bending hard. We knew she loved Grandpa. But this was a moment. Our moment. I sing the memory to Dominique. The music plays on. The wheels keep turning. Smiling the snapshot.