Documenting life for the memories

This week as I’ve been stalking a few of my favorite photographers, I’ve come across some seriously heartbreaking stories and some beautiful but sad images. Each story involves cancer. Cancer sucking the life out of very young women and mothers. Women who’ve barely had a chance to live life. The stories are about their fight back. Except that calling it a “fight” is an understatement. It’s more like an all out war on cancer. They flip their lives upside down and inside out in order to stay alive just a little bit longer to be with their children, their friends, their families. And to not let cancer win. It’s become their fulltime job to stay alive. I can’t even imagine managing that burden. But then when you’re motivated, you can accomplish a lot.

Jen Thompson (image on left) was diagnosed at 36 years old with ovarian cancer. She has two young boys. In this image, she’s saying goodbye before she leaves the country for an 8 week treatment.  Jill fought back against breast cancer at 32, had a double mastectomy and now has bone cancer. I looked at their images as if they were my friends and already gone, and I thought how utterly grateful I would be to have those memories to remember them by.

Then it made me think about my own children and what they’d remember if I was gone. Probably they’d remember me yelling about goofing off at the dinner table, or the enormous messes they leave behind every.single.day. Because I’m the one behind the camera, there are no images of me with them. So I immediately went to my favorite photographer’s forum and reached out to any local photographers to do a portrait swap. They take my family portraits, and I take theirs. I’m healthy. Today. But anything could happen tomorrow. Don’t we all take it for granted that we’ll wake up tomorrow, or we’ll make it home in one piece? I want my children to have images of me. And real images of me, not the ones my husband takes when I fall asleep on the couch. I want images of them. The everyday images. Your family portraits, your children’s portraits, photos with your friends…are memories you’ll have forever. They may not mean as much when we’re all here living life, but think about how much they’ll mean when someone’s not here.

I know it’s kind of morbid to think about, but how much would you regret not having those images if someone you love was no longer with you? As our kids get older, we don’t take pictures of them as often. Maybe they’re not as cute. Adolescence can be cruel. But it’s part of life. We don’t take pictures of our parents. Or our grandparents. Why not? I know I try to bring my camera out when my girls are around their grandparents and great-grandparents. I want them to have those images to look back on. I love seeing images of my grandparents before they had grey hair!

So all of this is to say, take more pictures, and be in the pictures. Leave your camera out so you can grab it when your son is hanging out with dad. Or to capture siblings playing sweetly. Take pictures when you bake cookies together, when reading together. Take pictures of messes!

Just, take pictures of the people you love. Because one day, they won’t be here.