Husband: “What are you doing up? It’s 4 am”

Me: I can’t find any pictures, I know I have to have some in one of these boxes!

Husband: Just go to bed, you can look in the morning.

Me: I can’t sleep, I need to find these pictures.  What are we going to show at the funeral.  I can’t even find any baby pictures.

This was me 16 years ago this month.  After scrapping through everyone’s images we  were able to come up with enough photos of my brother as a young boy to put a small album together; and I found 1 only 1 image of him at the age of 15.  He had the most piercing beautiful blue eyes with this curly blonde hair. He had been a scrawny kid growing up, but when he turned 15 he just seemed to lose the little boy look and became built.  He enjoyed hitting his boxing bag and he walked or biked everywhere.  He worked at Carl’s Jr. and made up his own secret language.

There is more to his story, but bottom line is that I love him and miss him terribly.  I missed the chances to include him more, take him out for ice cream.  I held onto a gift that I bought him in Vegas, making one excuse after another before I got THE call one early morning.

I lost my future with my brother.  Not ever a chance to make it up to him.  Even his obituary photo was maybe 5 years earlier from grade school.

I try to be better today by offering photos to my family, but even still I miss all that I would like to do and be.  Thank goodness we have cell phones, but have you ever tried blowing that up for a funeral picture.  Not the best quality.

My message to you is to take time to have pictures taken of yourself and of your families.  I promise you that you will never want to be caught without a picture to put into someone’s obituary.  And print.. print your pictures from your phone and camera or photographer.. don’t ever let your pictures sit on your computer waiting for the day that it crashes. You may lose your most cherished memories.  I know I have.

Capture your memories and exist in photos.  You’ll be grateful you did.