Do you ever stop to wonder what items you would drag to safety should you awake to find your house caught up in a blazing inferno? I used to plan how we would throw open Mom's bedroom window and toss each album to safety. They were, and are, important.

Many of my memories of my mother involve a camera in her hand. I grew so accustomed to the constant picture snapping that it became a matter of habit to me to summon her with the line, "Come take a picture!" whenever I accomplished anything of note: an exceptional tower of blocks, a particularly nice ensemble of dress-up clothes, a nice manicure of my baby brother's fingernails. The addiction to film must be genetic, for all of Mom's siblings are similarly attached to their cameras; my uncle says that when he married into this family, he realized immediately that he had to buy stock in Polaroid.

Pictures of me playing with my dolls. Pictures of me playing in the bathtub. Pictures of my brother, suspended in midair, on his stomach, in a towel held by my father, only seconds before the towel ripped in half and sent my brother plummeting to the floor in a heap. Pictures of me and my friends, with a huge python wrapped around our shoulders. Pictures of my father and my brother, asleep together in Cory's crib. Pictures of my baby brother crawling onto my own sleeping chest to wake me, Sleeping Beauty, with a drooly kiss.

When I gave my senior composition recital at West Virginia, I was extremely occupied beforehand with running around making sure everything was set up correctly, while my mother set up a mini-reception for me outside the doors. People began grinning as they walked past, and somebody eventually told me, "The pictures are adorable!" Confused, I ran outside and found that Mom had set up, on three music stands, three enlarged pictures. The first showed me as a toddler, grinning wildly, as I pressed several keys on the full-sized electric organ that I had in my bedroom. The second showed me as a child of nine at my first piano recital, dressed in a crisp yellow dress and sitting at a Steinway. The third was from high school, when I played for an honors assembly; my cheeks are flushed with nervousness, and my bangs fall wildly in my eyes. Mom had illustrated my musical growth, up to the present time, for all visitors to see. I loved her more than ever at that moment.

Mom taped me, too. There's a particular tape she made when I was three, reading (yes, really) Snow, and my inflections are so dramatic as to obscure every single word I said. "SNOW, snow, WOOK AT DA snoooow! do YOU WIKE SNOOOOW???" The preservation of the moment is so sweet, it makes my teeth ache even now.

She recorded our conversation when I, at four, came home from a day visiting Grandma.

MOM: Did you have a good time?
ME: Yes. Pretty Boy [Grandma's cat] thumped me!
MOM: He did?
ME: Yes. He thumped my on the chest.
MOM: Well, why did he do that?
ME: 'Cause I pulled his tail.

The tape recorder was there again when I came home from my first day of school.

MOM: What did you do in school today?
ME: We had a snack!
MOM: Did you meet any friends?
ME: Yes. Mrs. Nally. [What a teacher's pet I was!]
MOM: What did you do?
ME: We had a treasure hunt! (Long pause.)
MOM: Well, what did you find?
ME: (As if to say, "Poor, dumb Mom!") Treasure!

There are no pictures of my friend Tracy and I, sitting out front of my house at my little picnic table, selling any of our various things. We had a lemonade stand once, and a "perfume stand," where we sold plastic cups of perfume that we had made ourselves out of crushed rose petals, water, and a little of Mommy's cologne. We also cleaned out our junk drawers, and then sat for hours, wondering why nobody would come to our "yard sale."

I have no pictures of the patch of carpet that I burned away the day I decided to light my first match. Being a "smart" child, I had thought to protect my little fingers from the fire by holding the match between two pieces of cotton. I didn't cry from the pain, but Mom figured something was up when she heard me running like mad for the bathroom to get a cup of water to put out the flaming carpet.

And I have no pictures of Mom and me together after I reached about the age of thirteen, with the exception of awards ceremonies and other "family" events. Perhaps the lack of those photos alone tells the story better than any picture ever could.