I found this interesting new app that “animates” old photos.

If you plug a picture of grandma into the system, it spits out a version of her in the kitchen with a big wooden spook stirring that pot of gravy while rocking that house dress instead of just staring at the camera in annoyance.

I spent the better part of an afternoon finding old Kodachromes of my family and watching as the magic of AI breathed life into them, for just a few seconds.

Members of the generations that came after me, Gen X, Millenials and Gen Z might not think this is a big deal. They grew up having every moment of their lives captured on video, and it’s the rare 40-year-old who doesn’t at least have one cassette or DVD of twirling around at a dance recital or walking proudly across a stage to accept her diploma.

Having grown up in the late 1960s and the ‘70s, I have none. My father did do a great job documenting his five kids with a Pentax, a Minolta, a Canon and his trusty Kodak.

But no film, unless you count the fuzzy 8 millimeter he took of me walking down Old York Road in Logan.

Which brings me to my father.

I have not celebrated Father’s Day for 44 years, since Daddy passed away in 1982 exactly four weeks before I would have bought him his favorite British Sterling and some candy from Shane’s.

He was 43, 21 years younger than I am now. In the early years after his death, I blocked the holiday out of my mind, because it was too painful.

I remember one Father’s Day in 1984 when I made the mistake of watching “A Tree Grows In Brooklyn.”

Twelve year old Francie reminded me of me, the bossy older sister of a beloved but annoying baby brother, and a daughter who adored her Irish pa.

Set at the turn of the last century, it’s a deeply moving film. But at one point, after you come to realize just how much Francie loves her father, he dies unexpectedly. I wept then. I am weeping now as I write this.

That man, who reminded me so very much of my redheaded father, was filled with life and joy, and made his firstborn feel like a princess. He had his demons, but he was so much more than the worst moment of his life.

And when he died, her world closed in. It was a turning point in the movie, and I realize that my father’s death was a turning point in my own life.

I have three good friends who are spending their first Father’s Day this year without their own heroes. I knew two of these men, and I can imagine how truly painful it will be for their daughters to pick up a phone to hear a familiar voice, and then, slowly, put it down again.

I know how important all three men were to their daughters, beautiful, accomplished, strong women who, unlike me, had them well into their adult years.

That makes it even more painful, I think.

I’ve had decades to learn the phone might be silent but the voice is within me, still speaking to me.

They will learn that, but not just yet.

Fathers are usually a woman’s first true love, and looking through those old photos of Ted Flowers with his firstborn, I see it so clearly. In the black and white snapshots with the scalloped borders there is the little girl gazing adoringly into her father’s eyes, sitting on his lap expectantly, standing beside him while he bends down to kiss her, and dressed in a white lace communion dress while he holds her around the waist.

No Tsar ever held a Faberge egg with more care.

I took those photos, and “animated” them with the app. And while I know that it wasn’t real, and the movements weren’t entirely the ones he or I would have used, seeing my father actually hug me made me gasp.

He was alive, for just a few precious seconds, and I was a child who couldn’t imagine a world without him.

Technology isn’t entirely terrible. It brought my father back to me for a brief moment, and made me remember in a visceral way how handsome he was, and how dazzling his smile was.

My favorite quote from Wordsworth, possibly my favorite quote from any poem, is this:

“Though nothing can bring back the hour / Of Splendor in the Grass / Of Glory in the Flower / We will grieve not but rather / Find strength in what remains behind.”

And with a little help from AI, we can almost hear the laughter, too.

Copyright 2026 Christine Flowers