This post is focused on my personal life.
At the time of this blog post (January 25, 2019), it has been 5 months since I lost my beautiful Mother to cancer.
She was my best friend. Being a photographer, I was always the one taking images of my family, hardly being in any photos myself. Battling a bit with confidence, I always shrugged and said I would be in the pictures another time.
After connecting more with the importance of photography and why it mattered to me, I started questioning myself as to why I wasn’t taking pictures with my loved ones. Why was I being so shy to be in pictures with people that I love? I decided to change that in me, and I started existing in photos with my parents.
Flash forward a few years, I receive one of the scariest news of my life: my mom was diagnosed with cancer.
Bombarded with all the thoughts that were coming to my head, there was a little moment where I started going through all of my hard drives, and I started to look for pictures of her, and us together. I didn’t have many, and that made me angry. Talk about the shoemaker without shoes. After that, I started photographing her (and my family) any moment I could.
There were a lot of moments where she didn’t want to be photographed, especially during her last visit to my home (on my birthday), but I persisted and she said yes. This is where I was able to photograph the most beautiful family portraits of us that I will ever have the pleasure to capture:
I also captured some wonderful (and funny) portraits of her, and of my parents together:
These were the last portraits that I took with my Mom.
She passed away on August 19, 2018. On September 25th, 2018, I found out that I was pregnant. This is where everything hurt the most. I was becoming a mom, without my mom. My baby girl will never get to meet her grandmother. She will not get to feel her warm embrace and loving kisses. But, she will know what her grandmother looked like. She will know what her beautiful smile looks like. She will know how loving, silly, and energetic her grandmother was and I am happy that I was able to preserve that for her.
Whether its with a professional photographer or even if it’s with your phone, take the picture. Be in pictures with people that you love. Be silly, loving and capture those beautiful moments. Your life can change in an instant, and even if it sounds cliche, you honestly don’t know when you will see or hug someone for the last time.
I’ve learned my lesson, the hard way. I’m no longer afraid of existing in photos for my loved ones. Now with a baby on the way, this lesson is even more important, because her mother needs to be in photos too. Someday I won’t be with her, and the only things left behind for her will be the memories and photos.
Omy