I lost my beloved mother in law in March this year, age 61 from emphysema. My mum in law did smoke and was overweight - weighting over 22 stone and being just under 5ft tall.
We always thought she would be with us and I'm sure you can imagine our grief and the loss of having someone so special in our lives.
We will always have our memories, but sadly because like me she didn't like having her photo taken - like me she would always stand at the back in photos, if she ever had them taken at all - you know the kind of thing together with the words 'oh wait until I've lost the weight' etc, I hate looking at myself in any of the photos taken of me - I've ripped up many of them.
We have been trying to find photos of her to put up in frames, to look at and laugh and remember and to show the grandchildren and to keep for when they are older - but sadly they are few and far between.
I have now made myself a promise that no matter what size or how I feel I look, these among other things are some of the memories I would leave for my children and family - other than my wedding pictures (don't like them much either..) and a few head shots there are none of me.
I'm even going to let my kids loose with the camera and promise not to rip them up / erase them from the computer - I can wait till I've lost the weight or can have memories recorded for the ones I love now and go on doing so.
I don't know if this will help anyone or if its just struck something with me - but in the words of my daughter when looking at pictures and I was doing my usual - 'mum thats just you and we love you'.
We always thought she would be with us and I'm sure you can imagine our grief and the loss of having someone so special in our lives.
We will always have our memories, but sadly because like me she didn't like having her photo taken - like me she would always stand at the back in photos, if she ever had them taken at all - you know the kind of thing together with the words 'oh wait until I've lost the weight' etc, I hate looking at myself in any of the photos taken of me - I've ripped up many of them.
We have been trying to find photos of her to put up in frames, to look at and laugh and remember and to show the grandchildren and to keep for when they are older - but sadly they are few and far between.
I have now made myself a promise that no matter what size or how I feel I look, these among other things are some of the memories I would leave for my children and family - other than my wedding pictures (don't like them much either..) and a few head shots there are none of me.
I'm even going to let my kids loose with the camera and promise not to rip them up / erase them from the computer - I can wait till I've lost the weight or can have memories recorded for the ones I love now and go on doing so.
I don't know if this will help anyone or if its just struck something with me - but in the words of my daughter when looking at pictures and I was doing my usual - 'mum thats just you and we love you'.
