"Portraits for Easter"

reprinted with permission

Yesterday I decided to take my daughters to get their picture taken for Easter. It was going to be their first portrait taken together, and I was looking forward to it. Instead, it turned out to be one of most difficult experiences for me since my son died. I guess it suddenly hit me that he "wasn't in the picture". I looked around the walls of the studio and saw portraits of other little boys in their sporty outfits holding footballs and trucks. Each one was like a stab of pain to my heart. I thought of all the cute outfits I had that he never got to wear. Now they are in his trunk at the foot of my bed with the tags still on them. There were props and backgrounds of footballs and trucks, but of course the photographer never thought to use them for me.

As I was standing at the cash register a young nurse was holding her baby boy and was picking up her portraits she had taken of him. She held one up for him to see. He looked to be only a few months old and I thought to myself how lucky she was to have him. But I also thought that it was good that she had his portraits done. You never know.... She looked down at him to see if he was looking at his picture then she looked up at me. Her baby boy was looking at me instead. I smiled at him. And he smiled the most beautiful smile back at me. I was touched, his mom was proud.

I went home with my beautiful girls, and cried.