Holding On....Letting Go...

(Written a couple of months ago…)

My daughter is a scrapbooker.  Online and “for reals” too….  She called me today and asked me about this photograph and what I might remember about it…

Not much, since I was less than two years old.  I did know where it was taken: at the Santa Monica Pier….  I don’t remember the stuffed animal at all.  Or the circumstances of the visit to the merry-go-round.

I have shared photos with all my children.  I load them onto my Photobucket account and have allowed them to view what is there.  In return, I am a “guest” on their photo accounts and can grab pictures that they have posted.

It’s funny:  when my father died, my brothers divided up the pictures.  Some of the ones I wanted to have were kept by one or the other of my brothers.  These days, they could just scan them and load them on the internet and we could all have copies of the special pictures.

Special pictures.  That’s what I need to remember and hold close.  Those memories and photographs that will forever be in my head and my heart.   No one can take them away from me.  Of course, Alzheimer’s would take them away but I wouldn’t care, would I?

I spoke to my brother last week and got some disturbing news: it seems that there’s a remote possibility that, when my stepmother dies, I could lose my home.  I felt like I’d been kicked in the gut.  I have put more than $200,000 into purchasing this home and repairing/restoring it and I would hate to have that all be in vain.  I am going to hire a real estate lawyer to help me sort things out.   It won’t be easy, but it’s necessary.

In the meantime, I will enjoy what I have today, as it might be gone tomorrow.   My daughter’s scrapbooking project brought me back from the brink.  Nothing can happen that I cannot handle.  I will do what I need to do to keep my home, yet prepare for the worst, too.

And I will remember that what matters in life are those people in those photographs.  They will live in my heart forever, if not in my mind….

Cali