I love looking through old pictures. It’s fun to see myself as a baby and a toddler. I love seeing my brother and I in pictures together too and comparing which of my kids looks like us at different ages and stages. I love seeing pictures of my grandparents and great aunts and uncles, especially the ones old enough to be only black and white. I love seeing the photographs of my parents and aunts and uncles when they were children, teenagers, and early adulthood before I knew them. The pictures of my parents are extra special to me, since they are gone now. The same goes for both of my brothers, my uncle, and my late husband. The last family pictures we had together with my husband were taken the week before he was diagnosed with stage 4 stomach cancer. He didn’t feel good and wanted to reschedule and I urged him to just smile for an hour. I am so glad that I insisted on keeping that appointment with the photographer. He got sick pretty fast. Seven months later he passed away. Our baby was only 18 months old. Pictures and stories are all he will ever have to know his dad. I make sure each and every year to have family pictures taken. It’s a tradition that I will not break.

Whenever we are out at a tourist spot or traveling, we see families taking pictures together. It always seems the mom is taking it of her kids or of everyone else. I always offer to take the photo so they can all be in it. Many times the mom will say it doesn’t really matter, she doesn’t think she looks that great anyways. I tell her she looks amazing and insist on them all having this memory captured together. I hear it alot. “I can’t stand the way I look in photos!” “I will be in them again when I lose weight/color my grey/have a nicer outfit on.” Come on moms (and dads)! GET IN THE PHOTO. I cannot stress this enough. GET IN THE PHOTO! ALL OF THEM!

Tragedies happen. Great memories also happen. Sometimes the great memories are times in our lives we didn’t even realize were great until years later. After the tragedies that cause the losses, all we have are the memories and the photographs that can take us back to those memories. We can use photographs to help us heal. After my mother died, it was difficult not to picture her in the ICU with tubes coming in and out of her fragile body. I look at her from the photographs we have and it has helped erase the nightmare of her before she died. I see my mom, vibrant, smiling, in so many different activities, on years of special occasions, enjoying us, her family and her friends. When my son, Greyson, was stillborn a photographer came in and asked if I wanted pictures of him as I held him. I was so afraid to have this be a painful memory forever etched in my mind that I wasn’t sure I should have photographs. I did it anyways. After I had done some healing, I needed those pictures of my son. I wanted to see which of the other children he resembled. I want to always remember his sweet angel face. I cherish the pictures of my brother that I never met because he passed away before I was born as well as the ones of my other brother and I together as children, teenagers, and adults. I love that I have so many pictures with my late husband, so many of him with the kids. I make sure they are out for everyone to see as well. They need to be able to see their dad, the same way I love seeing the ones of my own dad.

If you are living a good life, you are cherishing the people you love and they are loving and cherishing you back. When you are gone, all that is left are the memories and the photographs. As generations pass, all your grandchildren and great grandchildren etc. will have are those wonderful photographs. They will want to see if they have your nose or your height or share your eye color. Get over yourself, your weight, you not being picture perfect in your own mind and give your family and friends your smiling face!

Photographs are not just for generations that follow us, but for us as well. Look around your home. Do you see any pictures of special times with friends, places you have visited, or birthday celebrations for your children? On days when you might not be feeling amazing, walk around and take a look at those pictures. Allow yourself to remember those good times and smile knowing how lucky you are to have had them! Be grateful knowing that, even though something is getting you down right now, you have experienced some pretty awesome stuff! Know that you will someday soon have more joy to photograph and frame to place all around you. What a gift!

We are blessed each and every day, all of us, in some way. It is what we choose to see that matters. It is much easier to see the good when we are surrounded by it through the pictures we have right in front of us. So these photographs we may not want to be in, are all potential gifts! These will someday will be given back to ourselves and passed on to others. We will be taken back to that restaurant where they put the sombrero on our best friend. We will see the look of surprise on our daughter’s face as she saw her birthday cake. We will remember the love our parents had for one another by seeing it in their eyes on their wedding day. We will smell our grandmother’s perfume when we see ourselves at 4 years old on her lap. There are countless memories to capture throughout our lives. Don’t let them pass you by. Take a few minutes today to walk around your home and really look at each picture you have displayed. If there aren’t many out, then make it a plan to go through your phone, get a bunch of those printed, and frame them! I promise you will never regret being in that photograph, but someone, somewhere will miss you if your face isn’t smiling back at them.