Since giving birth to our son I have worried incessantly about a countless number of things, but one of my biggest fears, aside from losing our son, has always been that something would happen to my husband or myself, leaving our son without one or both of his parents. Sadly, this hits very close to home for me, because I witnessed one of my beloved aunts loose her battle with breast cancer. She was only 45 and left behind a 12 year daughter who had no active father in her life. I can't even begin to describe the kind of pain and havoc that was left in it's wake.
What that loss instilled in me was a deep seated fear. Which leaves me constantly asking myself "if something were to happened to either of us would our son know how much he was loved?" I know we tell him constantly and our actions show it, but would that be enough to carry him through the rest of his life? Would it be enough to carry him through life's trails and celebrations and would it bring him comfort? That thought worried me, and to this day it still does. So what do you do when you worry about something? You formulate a plan to set your mind at ease. Other than trying to take care of ourselves, I knew that my life and death were in God's hand, death is simply a matter of when, not if. So I knew I wanted to be proactive should I be taken from this earth before I anticipated. I wanted to give our son something tangible, something that he could hold in his hands when he missed me/us. My plan was simple, it was photographs. I planned on photographing our son as much a possible, I was going to show him how much I loved him by all the thoughtful photos I took of him and of our lives together as a family. I wanted him to know that he was the sun and moon of our little planet and that I left no shadow of doubt that he was anything but adored by us. It sounded like a great plan, he would have the photos an our words to comfort him. The only problem was that wouldn't be enough, but I didn't know that yet.
One day I found myself discussing all of this with one of my closest friends and she pointed out something I hadn't even thought to consider. She said "Connie, do you know what your son would want photos of if you were to die?" She asked in such a way that it seemed like it should be painfully obvious. She said "He wouldn't want photos of himself, he would want photos of you!" Gosh, when she said that I instantly knew in my heart that she was right and I felt like I had the wind knocked right of of my chest! How in the world had I not even considered that? For anyone who has ever lost someone, you know that to be true. I knew all of that first hand so what in the world was I thinking? From that moment on I started to get in my own photos more and knew that I wanted to share more of myself with our son. For instance I want him to know that the reason he likes to twirl his hair while he sleeps is because I used to do that while I rocked him to sleep in my arms as a baby. I want him to know that one of my little joys in life is watching those tiny bubbles drift and bounce around that come from squeezing the dish soap bottle. If I left this earth too soon, I would want him to know me, not just as his mom, but who I was as a person. Because knowing me, means he knows himself a little more too.
What I'm trying to emphasis at is that I don't want you to get so caught up in documenting the lives of your children or loved ones that you forget to document who you are. You never know, the photos of you may in fact be the best gift you ever gave your children or loved ones. So friends I implore you, have a plethora of photos of yourself. I promise you, you're kids won't care if you had makeup on or if your outfit was cute, that won't matter one iota. Just get in front of the camera once in awhile, actually scratch that, get in front of the camera a lot! In conjunction with photos have notes and list written down that leave clues as to the person you were . Leave a shoe box full of little things that are important to you and explanation of why. Have a love letter written to your children or to whomever you love should you not be able to utter it one last time to them in person. Leave them with an abundance of yourself, because that is what they will crave the most. Leave behind a little bit of you to remain with them.
