Documenting a Special Wish of a Lifetime - Kitchener-Waterloo Photographer

Sometimes, when you’re really lucky and things line up just right, a really cool opportunity knocks on your door right out of the blue. That’s the kind of luck I was having the day I heard from Wish of a Lifetime that they were looking for a photographer in our area, and they liked my work.

If you haven’t heard of Wish of a Lifetime, they’re an organization in Canada and the US that grants wishes to senior citizens to help them feel connected to the things that give their lives meaning. I admire and respect their goal of keeping seniors from feeling isolated by reconnecting them to people and passions that give them a sense of purpose. They fulfill wishes in 4 categories: commemorating service, fulfilling lifelong dreams, reconnecting loved ones, and renewing & celebrating passions.

When they reached out to me, it was because a senior citizen in our community was having her wish fulfilled, and they wanted someone to document the moment. Lotty had always wanted to know more about her mother’s birth mother, but only knew what little her mother had told her. Growing up, Lotty’s mother knew her mother and her “Sunday mother,” and Lotty felt sure that “Sunday mother” was a way of saying her birth mother, who stayed connected with her through weekly visits. When the family emigrated from a Mennonite community in Russia to join a Mennonite community in Canada, Lotty’s mother had to choose which mother she wanted to go with. She chose her adoptive mother, and information about her birth mother was lost to time.

Through Wish of a Lifetime, Lotty was connected with the Mennonite Archives of Ontario, which are housed at Conrad Grebel University College at the University of Waterloo. Laureen, archivist-librarian at the Mennonite Archives, was able to share information with Lotty about people from her mother’s community in Russia, as well as what daily life was like there. An important fact was that it was not unusual for children to be adopted by a family and continue to have regular contact with their birth mother as well.

Lotty was able to see documents like the ship’s passenger list, and records of what communities the newcomers joined upon arriving in Canada.

It was clear to see that Lotty enjoyed discovering new information about her roots, and she was very grateful to be able to do this through Wish of a Lifetime. Seeing her looking at handwritten records related to her family’s past, I started to think about how much documenting people’s stories has changed. And when Laureen showed Lotty that she could access photographs online that showed her family’s community in Russia, it gave me a new appreciation of just how important it is to photograph day-to-day life, including those moments or places that seem so commonplace, we can’t imagine wanting to document them. One day, they might really help someone else connect to a time gone by.

Lotty was clearly so grateful for this connection to her family’s story. And I was so grateful for the opportunity to volunteer my time and skills to document the experience!

For more information on Wish of a Lifetime, please visit their website here.