Creating Lasting Memories

General, Parenting 1 Minute

Ever since I knew that I have a terminal illness, I’ve been much more intentional about creating lasting memories with my boys.  They are currently five (5) and three (3), so I am quite well aware that their actual memories of me may not be all that vivid if my life expectancy follows the median of those with my disease (2-3 years is the median life expectancy).  One of the major ways I make sure that I will be visible in my boys’ memories is to take a lot of pictures.

Life isn’t perfect and I am often not happy about the way that I look in the pictures.  That used to mean that I didn’t post pictures or even take them and when I did, I’d carefully ensure that only the best were displayed.  Now, I take pictures all the time and I post and share pictures quite a bit.  I’m not at all narcissistic, I am intentionally making a record of the time that I have with my boys for them, for their future.  They will be able to look back and see all of the times we’ve had together.

When my dear friend, Jennifer Pace, posted information about an up and coming non-profit that schedules photo sessions for those of us with metastatic breast cancer, I jumped at the opportunity.  The photo session was nothing less than amazing and the pictures that came out of it are priceless.

I’ll post more on Facebook and all of the pictures, but I’ve tagged one of my favorites in this blog post.  Check out Joe Leone Photography and like 13th Hour on social media.  Joe and his sweet wife are traveling around Florida capturing poignant memories that cannot be replaced.

Published by Abigail Johnston

I'm a daughter, a wife, a mother, and I've been living with Stage IV Metastatic Breast Cancer since March, 2017. All of the words I publish are my own.

Published

16 thoughts on “Creating Lasting Memories”

  4. So proud of you! You can’t imagine how much they will mean to your kids! I’ve seen it. Those pictures will mean the world. And you gave it to them! ❤️

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  5. I posted a response on Nancy’s Point where she reblogged your beautiful post. Here it is:
    It’s difficult to put things in boxes. Especially when everything changes including the boxes themselves when a stage 4 diagnosis squashes our lives like a big anvil out of the sky might squash Elmer Fudd. Except we’re not self healing cartoon characters that can re-inflate our flattened lives. So I suppose with stage 4, it’s difficult for me at least, to compartmentalize the many areas of my life. Family relationships, friendship, work, financial matters, and everything else that makes up a life rarely escape the impact of metastatic cancer. The things that once seemed very important no longer hold that much value, while intangible things like memories, experiences, love, and hope take up the value of money (as it relates to material objects not supporting our medical requirements), things, status, ego, and how one fits in with normal society matter far less. The fleeting satisfaction of buying a new pair of jeans does not give us joy, but the building of sandcastles brings out wondrous curiosity and interesting creativity that satisfies our soul. Especially when with our children. Life becomes more precious than the salary of a well paying job. Although I do miss my career, which spanned years developing a respectable reputation with many good relationships across a diverse group of intelligent creative people who helped shape the technological inventions that we all use today. I’m truly proud of those achievements. So, I suppose I’ve boxed up my past and put it away in a dusty attic in my mind, and I take it down sometimes and look at the plans, innovations, and former companies I worked for and with. It’s the friends I made along the way who mean more than the financial value created while working together.

    We’re all in a different space and we’ve become mortality mirrors that people don’t necessarily want to see themselves in…expressing the fear of the end of life that most people aren’t ready to discuss or even think about. We must accept our human frailties and the precious gift of this short time in the conscious plane of human existence.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. Thank you for sharing your experiences with this concept. I’d not thought of this interpretation previously, but it is so true! I also have boxed up so much of the achievements I’d reached before cancer. So much that used to be the center of my days, weeks, years, are no longer visible. It’s good to remember and celebrate what makes us who we are today. Love and light to you!

      Like

      Reply

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s