Phoblography: Family

For my next trick, I will explain my life in pictures. Or, more accurately, using pictures. I figured I'd start at the foundation: my family.

Those Kelley Girls

This is one of my favorite photographs in print. It just so happens to be of my mother. That's her in the middle with my aunts. She's about two there, I believe.

The women of the Kelley clan are the stuff of legend. Incredibly strong, fiercely resilient and deeply loving with life stories to rival the best Toni Morrison and Terry McMillan have to offer. An African slave woman named Sally was the first of them and they've been rolling ever since.

My mother lives up to the tradition, although she's on the more reserved end of the spectrum. She's a woman of quiet strength with a faith that screams. Her grassroots relationship with God is about as old as this picture and was the first and best inheritance I received. She is also the source of my smile, my freckles which come and go, my hairline, my interest in teaching and youth ministry, the reserved side of my demeanor, and my passion for experiencing God through his creation.