Maybe you do...

Have I mentioned how amazingly thankful I am for my new digital camera? Well, I am..thanks again, Steve. My other camera was snatched away by a thief in the night and for a long while I wasn't the same. (The close up of the paw is of my youngest cat, Little Kitty). Have you ever smelled a cat's or dog's paw or their coat fresh in from playing on a cold winter's day? Try it. You won't be disappointed.

Photography is a passion of mine and I have to wonder if crystallizing moments in time, and immortalizing them for my forever, has something to do with my desire to leaf through old photos and recall times spent with my mother when she was still alive. 

Tomorrow will be the 16th year since my mom died (I know "passed away" is less offensive to people, but, truth be told, she didn't pass away - she died suddenly, without warning). I recently celebrated my 32nd birthday and it occurred to me, in a strange mathematical way, that I have now lived the same amount of time without her as I did with her here. There are times when past memories of her and I, together, come to mind - of us shopping, reading, or playing board games - where I see, smell, and feel her just as if she were here now, then suddenly reality interjects itself and in an instant she is gone again, residing only in the old snapshots. It's times like these it seems as if no one could understand the depths of my pain. Then again, who knows, maybe you do.