Sunday, June 19, 2011

Silhouette of a Beautiful Girl


Shortly after my mom passed away, the family and I took a trip to San Diego to visit my mom's brother and his wife. When I walked in to the room where we were staying, I noticed a photograph leaning up against the mirror. It was a picture of me, that was taken during my family's first visit to California, when I was about 13. I instantly remembered the trip, and even the day it was taken. It was the first time I'd ever been to the beach. I flipped the photo over, and on the back, in my mother's handwriting was written "Silhouette of a Beautiful Girl". I sobbed like a baby.

Two nights ago, I was on the beach in South Florida with my husband, my kids, Kitty and her husband. We had walked down for one last look at the ocean before we ended our visit with them. I was feeling very emotional, as I had a couple of times during this trip. While we were there, I heard Kitty instruct my daughter to turn around for a photo. It was dark, but when the flash lit up the night I saw my own beautiful young daughter standing there in the exact same pose as the photo of me. "Silhouette of a Beautiful Girl" was all I could think of.

Tears began to stream down my face, just as they are right now. I was praying that no one would be able to see me since it was dark. I just couldn't understand how everyone else was so happy, and I was standing there on the dark beach with big wet tears gathering in a pool on my throat.

I'm still not completely sure what emotions I was feeling. Grief for my mother? Sadness at leaving Kitty? Hormones? Returning to the real world? Work? I'm only sure of two things--Looking at this photo, I KNOW I have everything in the world to be grateful for, and I'm so tired of these random bursts of sadness.

1 comment:

kitty said...

I feel the tears and am also thankful that I was able to see the beautiful young girl!