Thursday, August 28, 2014

NEW PHOTOS


I have a picture hanging up of my mom in my office now.. In it I'd say she's about my age, actually. She's wearing a black gingham shirt, high waisted jeans, and red suspenders. She's got what appears to be black freckles painted on her cheeks, and is holding a toothbrush up to her teeth. The photo was given to me at the hospital by one of her high school friends and I'm assuming was for Halloween or some school play.

It's easy for me to look at this photo and I can do so without next to any emotion. It's just a cute photo of a young girl. I think it's easy to look at because I didn't know her then. She wasn't my mom then. It's the same as looking at any old photos for me, there's a sort of strange detachment from who I know that person to be today.

When we were looking through old photos, photos like the one in my office, for my mom's services I remembered vividly something Sarah had written about losing her own mother, and photos.  That every time she went looking for photos she thought about how few they had and how there will never be a "new" photo. I can already tell that's going to be one of my big life regrets.. how few photos I have with my mom. In fact, I can count on one hand it seems the number of photos of us over the last 5 years (and that's including my wedding). One of those photos is the picture at the beginning of the post. It was from Mother's Day last year. I was scrolling through my camera deleting pictures in anticipation of the thousands I plan to take in Italy and this photo reduced me to a crying mess. It's the really recent photos that get to me the most. How can this feel like it just happened yesterday and she looks just the way she did in them as she did the day she died. How can it be that in such a short period of time, so much has changed? She just stopped existing. It's hard to wrap my mind around.

I'm sure as time goes on and the "newest" photos become old, and become "the last photos" I'll have an entirely new set of feelings surrounding them.

This unusual double-emo posting this week brought to you by the fact that I realized, sitting in my dad's living room yesterday before heading to dinner, that it's been exactly 6 months to the day (yesterday) since she passed away.

How is that possible?


3 comments:

  1. Has it seriously been 6 months? I can't believe it.

    I wish the pictures didn't run out, and I wish like hell that we hadn't let vanity or whatever stupid reason keep us from taking more photos. It's a mistake I don't want to make with my own kids someday!

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  2. Love the picture in this post. Def one to treasure!

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  3. I can't believe it's been 6 months! I also can't imagine how difficult it would be to come across photos, especially recent ones.

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