This Would Be She and I…

When I wrote about taking family photos the other day, I had wanted to include one of my very favourite shots of my daughter. She had given her permission to post it, but when it came time to add it to the post it I just couldn’t find it on my computer or on any of my backup drives.

I was beside myself. The photo I wanted had been taken at our final formal session, one for which she had gone out of her way to select an outfit and get herself dolled up. It was also the last photo I took of her before our family of three disintegrated two weeks later; I couldn’t have known at the time that it was going to be quite a while before I saw a genuine smile again on her face.

With our two moves last year and many strangers coming and going when I was selling my possessions, I feared that one of my drives had somehow gone missing. Checking and double checking, the sought photos weren’t turning up. I kept telling myself that the memory of that afternoon might just have do, in the way that I’ve always consoled my daughter when an item had accidentally broken or gotten lost. It’s just a thing, it’s people who count much more.

Despite trying to think in those terms, my heart just wasn’t buying it. It was only tonight after numerous searches for the files that it occurred to me to try searching by the date of the photo being taken.

And I found it. A moment of joy overwhelmed me in seeing that gorgeous smile that I remembered so clearly capturing that day. I had accidentally placed the folder within another one. As was my habit to make at least two backups, I had also done the second backup on another drive with the same misfiling.

A while back while searching on the internet for something completely unrelated (an Arrested Development show plotline had caught my curiosity), I came upon the blog of a young women who is battling cancer. On her blog she regularly includes family photos, I was taken by surprise at what a difference it made to me to see the faces of the loved ones whom she was writing about. I felt more invested in her story, and I made a promise to myself to one day share personal images on this blog.

You may believe that in writing this blog I’ve opened up my whole life to you, but a great deal of what has transpired had been left out. For more than a year, and I suppose really from the time of my diagnosis, I’ve been quietly trying to come to terms with where my accumulated lifetime experiences and beliefs will lead me in decisions to be made at the end of my life.

What I need my readers to know is that this is, and will continue to be a story about two people, my daughter and I. When it comes down to it, it’s only what she and I think that matters. It’s she and I who walk in these shoes, and no one else. And we will continue to keep parts of our life private. You might be surprised just how much can be happening in the life of someone confined to bed!

The photo of Suzanna on her own was taken at that last photo shoot just over two years ago. I’m a wee bit biased, but I think she’s only become more beautiful each day. The photo of the two of us was taken when she was eleven. She in the meantime has turned from child to young woman, I not only look older but worn out now too. The smile however on most days is still there.

As we tell more of our story over the next few months perhaps it’ll resonate in having seen our photos that we’re an ordinary mother and daughter who happen to be in the middle of extraordinary circumstances. Despite the challenges, we make one heck of a great team!