So sorry for your loss. Praying that Jesus gives you strength and comfort during this time!

Mother’s Day - May 12, 2024…..

I love taking photos of beautiful things. I have 1000’s from 35mm slides, pre-digital prints, to digital in recent years. Memories fade quickly, but photos are the “glue” of the memory. While I have untold numbers of nature photos, my most coveted photos are of the beautiful people that make up my family and friends. I love you all for your outward beauty but, far more importantly, your inward beauty.

When I first saw Toni in 1981, I was immediately captivated by her outward beauty. This never faded through 45 years together but was strengthened greatly by her inward beauty. This inward beauty took time for me to see, as with any early stage of marriage, through thick and thin. However, as cancer attacked and began to wrestle life away from Toni, her beauty never dulled…..neither inward nor outward. She laughed every time I told her how beautiful she was to me, even after losing 50 lbs, all of her hair, and even on her deathbed. There was, however, a moment when her beauty left her......immediately after she took her last breath. I realized then that her beauty had departed to eternity, and instead of sadness, I felt comforted by this knowledge. I will see her beauty again someday, of this I am certain.

I will greatly miss taking photos of Toni, but I will always have the ones I have taken for 45 years to look back on.

Happy Heavenly Mother’s Day, darling.