\
The other day I was listening to Jamey Johnson’s song “In Color.”
If you’ve ever really listened to it, you know it hits you deep.
There’s something powerful about the way he sings about old black and white photographs, the kind where the smiles look faint but you can tell there’s a whole story behind those faces.
That song made me think about the boxes of old photos I’ve looked through over the years, the ones with curled edges and that faint smell of time.
There are pictures of my grandparents standing proudly in front of their farmhouse, Grandpa in his work clothes, Grandma in her apron, both smiling like they didn’t have a care in the world.
And there are those old Easter photos of me and my sisters all dressed up in our Sunday best, shiny shoes, little hats, and matching outfits that Mama picked out weeks ahead of time.
Back then, we didn’t have a camera handy everywhere we went.
Photos weren’t something you could take dozens of and delete until you got one you liked.
You took one picture and hoped everyone’s eyes were open.
Film was expensive, and you had to finish the roll before you even knew how the pictures turned out.
Maybe that’s why those old photos seem to mean so much more.
They were moments chosen carefully: birthdays, family reunions, holidays, or just a rare day when someone thought, “Let’s take a picture.”
Nowadays we have thousands of photos sitting on our phones, but they don’t carry the same weight.
We can take a picture of every meal, every sunset, every smile, but somehow the more we take, the less we feel them.
Those old black and white photos, though, each one seems to hold a heartbeat.
When I look at those photos now, I can’t help but wonder what they would have looked like in color.
Would we see more life in them?
Would Grandma’s dress have been a soft floral print, or the yard behind us a fresh spring green?
Would Grandpa’s old truck gleam a faded red in the background, or would our Easter baskets show every shade of pink, yellow, and blue?
Color has a way of bringing things closer to us.
It makes those moments feel alive again, like we could step right back into them and hear the laughter, smell the ham cooking in Grandma’s kitchen, or feel the warm breeze of an Easter Sunday afternoon.
But sometimes I wonder if we would really want them in color.
Maybe the black and white is part of their magic.
Maybe it softens the edges of time and reminds us that those days belong to another era.
The lack of color somehow makes us imagine it, filling in the shades and tones with our own memories and hearts.
And maybe that’s better.
Because when we picture them in our minds, they’re already painted in the truest colors of all: love, warmth, and family.
Maybe that’s what Jamey Johnson meant, that those photos never really lost their color at all.
It’s still there, in the memories, just waiting for us to see it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYGwxf1gCC4..https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYGwxf1gCC4….