Moments Lived Together

I probably should have written this piece when I saw this and a few other pictures last week. It would have better captured the emotions. This is a picture of my family before it got turned upside down by disease. It was our first big family vacation, Disney World followed by time on the Gulf Coast of Florida. In the picture from the left, my cousin Shannon, my Mom, my Brother, that's me with the pigtails, my Grandmother and my Dad.

A year or two after this trip my dad got very sick. A year after that my brother (the one pictured because there are two) was diagnosed with cancer. He was five. He survived. My dad on the other hand did not his death though was two fold first he was sick, then institutionalized and some years later passed after his disease got the best of him.

This picture though is a whole different time in life. It was when I was still a child and didn't know what it meant to really get sick beyond a cold or a stomach bug.

I am so very grateful for this picture and it's friends. It captures a moment in my life that I don't remember. I remember the trip and the excitement it brought. I remember the long car ride. Where we slept at my grandparent's house. Rain in Epcot. A drag racing museum my dad dragged us to. It is a gift to have such a powerful memory, to be able to remember so far back and in vivid detail.

There weren't many more moments like this for us as a family. In knowing that I try to capture each one with my own little family. That's the great part about memories and pictures they freeze a moment in time.