Family Pictures

Family pictures:

I love family pictures. I treasure every single one of our family pictures. They are all beyond precious to me. My kids have also learned to love family pictures. Traditionally we took fall ones and spring ones. They always had a sort of theme: everyone in white, country, Lilly Pulitzer, etc. We even once had a cat in our family pictures.  Steve worried it would make the "Awkward Family Picture" website. It might still 😂. It is quite humorous, but we LOVE our cat and why not!?!People do it with their dogs all the time 😳

Now family pictures are painful. A huge piece of our family is forever missing and taking a picture is just another sad reminder. A picture in a frame now replaces Mary symbolically. I now believe I never got enough pictures or videos. There will never be enough memorials of Mary-ever. I think I never thought she would be gone from this world before me. That is just wrong and backwards. A child should never leave this world before a parent. How can this be? It doesn't make logical sense. And I don't want to see pictures of her bald and sick; I want pictures of her happy and healthy just how she should be. But the thing is-we are still a family and Maddy and Whit love family pictures. So I struggle and still take them and lots of them. Time moves so fast and the kids change in the blink of an eye. One day Maddy and Whit will be older than Mary. Mary who is forever 12 and never a teen. I can't send out Christmas cards anymore, not yet. It seems so wrong. I can't be 100% thankful and blessed and grateful with Mary missing. I use to love sending out the family Christmas card, but no longer. I also dread seeing others and getting their beautiful cards. This was something I use to love. It is only a reminder of all we have lost as a family. But I will keep a smile on my face and take family pictures because although broken we are still a family. A family full of love and hope and with a future. But we will forever be missing one. I encourage families to document moments and take pictures and suffer though them. You never know what the next year will hold. You might have someone missing, (I hope not) the people and children grow and change and time doesn't stand still. A picture will at least capture that one precious moment forever.