I receive a lot of emails and read a lot of comments that really touch me, really resonate with me, really hit home. And once in a while I feel prompted to share one with you because I have a feeling that it will really touch someone, really resonate with someone, really hit home for someone who reads it. Today I share with you (always with permission), this letter from Kelly in California.
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Dear Becky,
I just wanted to tell you thank you for creating the idea of Project Life. This is year number two for me. I love that the project is able to tell the little stories that I probably would never scrapbook. I’m using the POTD format and loving it.
But, the reason for my thank you …
My mom recently passed away in December. This has been a really difficult time for me. But, thankfully, due to my Project Life I had my sister snap a quick picture of my mom and I when we traveled to San Francisco for a doctor’s appointment with her specialist. My mom has never liked having her picture taken. But she knew about my Project Life and went along with me for one quick picture. Exactly a month later she was gone. I had no idea how much this picture would mean to me when I took it for my Project Life. It’s the only recent picture I have of the two of us together. I will treasure it forever.
So thank you. Thank you for reminding us to capture the little things in life. Sometimes those things that we think are little turn out to be very important.
Kelly Sanders
Tags: pictures, Project Life
Absolutely beautiful! Thank you for sharing that with us, Becky!!
It is amazing the beauty in the little things such as a picture and how powerful and photograph can be.
Oh just beautiful. Thinking of you Kelly I know first hand this type of loss. It is devastating when your so close. Thank you for allowing Becky to share with all of us Project Lifers. Gotta love LOVE that Becky:)))))))))))))
Thank you for sharing this with us. It is so true that we can be here today and gone tomorrow. This is not only a reminder to keep on with Project Life, but to make each day count! Thank you Becky for all you do!
that both warms and breaks my heart.
my heart goes out to her….
I just told myself that when I go to see my parents in may
that I am getting LOTS of pix with them! I always try to, but it always fails!
this time I am making it happen!
I am doing project life for the first time this year and LOVING IT!
thanks for the life reminder!
xoxo
tara
Oh so very true. This is beautiful. For me now each picture I have taken has much more meaning. As I capture moments so my kids will be able to cherish it in the years to come. This is my 1st year doing Project Life & this is the most amazing and most wonderful project I have worked on. Thank you so much for putting this together. I send you one BIG Hug all the way from NY!
Thanks for sharing this with us,. I too have been thinking a lot about this lately as a high school friend just suddenly lost her dad to a stroke a few days ago. I called my parents immediately and promised myself I’d take pictures of us together the next time I see them. Much appreciated as always!
Thanks for sharing this letter with us. Really touched me and made me think…
I am going to see my parents in 2 weeks and am so glad I read this. Am also going to make an effort to take more photos of them, even though they always protest. Appreciate so much your work and blog.
I love this picture! Thanks for sharing. I am sorry for your loss. This is what I tell my family when I am always taking pictures of everything too.
This is so near and dear to me .. for so long I HATED having my picture taken .. was always thinking that I did not look good enough .. or about a million other reasons for not getting in front of the camera .. and if I could have a do over I would go back and be in EVERYONE of the pictures I could with my precious daugher Kaitlyn that we lost 4.5 years ago .. I have ONE picture of her and I that was taken at Christmas 2005 .. who new that 8 months later I would NEVER have the chance to take another picture with her again .. SO PLEASE get in front of the camera with your family .. I would give just about anything to have just ONE more picture with my sweet girl
Cheri
This really breaks my heart. Thanks for sharing, Kelly. And to you, Becky. I will take more family pictures, from now on. Thanks, really.
What a touching post! My heart goes out to Kelly. I’m at the same place in my own life. My Sweet Mama is battling many serious health problems and I know that day will come…the day that she is not here…the first person I fell in love with. Hurts my heart…
I hope and Pray that I will be able to visit her at Easter. She’s in Ark., I’m in MN.! I also Pray that a camera will somehow appear in my life! I NEED to have Memories in photos. Can you tell that I LOVE my Mom?
Thank You, Becky for sharing and for making it possible to preserve Sweet Moments in Life!
Bless You! Jo
I have a picture of my mom & me with a very similar story. I treasure it beyond measure. My mom was battling cancer for over 5 years and never wanted her picture taken. But shortly before she passed, when we all believed she was out of the woods and “safe” and she had more than “peach fuzz” for hair, we got a picture of the two of us. Just sitting on the porch swing laughing and being mom&daughter. LOVE IT!
You are making me cry, but so TRUE!
I love this an completely agree, since starting project life I don’t have nearly as many “Oh I wish I would have taken a picture of that” moments!! It only takes a second to snap a picture that could have great meaning later!
i so wish that there was a support group for great women that have lost their great women. a place that we could all share and help. where no one would laugh when you say “i want my mom”…
i identify with Kelly so much. i lost my mom on my due date just 10 days before my son arrived. i took the last photo of us on the day she left us. a simple photo, of her hand on my belly, with my hand on top of hers. i felt like i needed a photo of her with my son.
never wait to take those photos! never.
I agree with you Christie, never wait to take those photos!
Your image of your mom’s hand and your hand on your belly is a powerful message about remembering that love is our past, our present and our future. Your mom was leaving her handprint on your son’s heart that day
Thank you for sharing your story, Kelly. My heart goes out to you. Sadly, I too lost my mom on Dec 19th, this year. Tomorrow is her birthday and I am feeling overwhelmed with the feelings of loss. We had the blessing of being able to say our goodbyes. She was surrounded by all her children and some grandchildren and great-grandchildren. My feisty mother put up her index finger, shaking it at me; telling me no pictures on my cell phone. She did approve of pictures of hand-on-hand, and pictures of her children comforting her, from behind the hospital bed. I have not shared these pictures with my siblings yet, as we are all too raw, but in time, these will be priceless, of our last moment on earth with our mom.
Thanks you, Kelly, for sharing. And thank you, Becky, for sharing. I did December Daily this year for the first time and took a picture of my 97-year-old mother making her way up the entry to her church. It say so much about her faith and her determination to keep going to the place that has given her so much solace. Thank you to all you great scrapbookers for helping us tell the story.
turn your flash off, be sure your camera is on silent, and snap away hip shots of them in their day to day lives… that is what i had to do with my mom. i have a great one of her baking for christmas, she never knew i took it. she never even got to see it. click away, secretly!
As I do most General Conference Saturdays, I cleaned and cleaned my little apartment as I listened. This listening/viewing while cleaning is a tricky balance given that I would find myself mid wipe or sweep, stopping and listening to a particularly good point, and forget what had already been wiped or swept. I went through piles of papers and tore pages out of old magazines and tidied up what has been the last couple of weeks that I’ve been traveling.
What a great post.. I know all too well the devastating feeling of losing soemone. I lost my father 9 years ago and recently lost my mother March of last year. I am still dealign with the pain of no longer being able to see her face. I started PL this year and regret not doing it sooner. Had I done it, I probably would have been able to document what I didn’t know at the time was her last year with me.
Thanks for sharing this story! Tomorrow is the one-year anniversary of my Dad’s passing. Even though he was not in good health and he is in a much better place now, it doesn’t make losing someone you love any easier…even after a year. I have the original Project 365 and ever since I got it, I have been saying “oh, this year I’ll start it”…what, was that 2 years ago. Well, I finally started it this year and even though, I haven’t kept up with it everyday, I am so thankful to have captured the memories I have made so far. Before my Dad passed away, I was staying with him and he showed me a scrapbook that his Mother put together of his childhood…cards, pictures, school and Sunday school things, accomplishments and it even had the marriage announcement of my Mom and Dad from the newspaper. It was so awesome looking through this album that my Grandma started back in the late 1930s. It really hit me how important it is to document life…because if we don’t, who will?! Thanks for providing us this fantastic, simple way to document our lives!
Becky, this is not a comment directly related to this post, but it is about Project Life. I have contacted Ziblio twice this year – once with questions about working with the digital version, and just recently about a pre-paid order code that I had not received. Both times they answered me very promptly and gave me the information I needed, with a reminder to contact them if I needed any more help. I have been very pleased with Ziblio’s customer service!
Kelly, your words are so true. And I’m very, very sorry for your loss.
Thanks for sharing Becky.
I lost my brother 5 years ago, when he was 21 and killed in Iraq. The first thing we all did is start looking for pictures. We have quite a few, but I was so sad to find exactly 2 pictures of him and I in all that we have collected. Since his death, everyone in my family has become avid photographers. My mother has made it her mission to make sure that soldiers and their families have quality photo shoots before they are deployed to Iraq, and other places. I have had two children since his death, and their little lives have been journalled thoroughly
My family is spread out all over, with parents on the mission field and siblings on the other side of the States, when we get together it is SO important that we snap at least one sibling pic with everyone. Its amazing how when death is so real, and loss so deep that a smile from a piece of paper or a computer screen and remind you about what is important in life 
Thanks Becky, for inspiring us to capture those moments so that my children and so many others will have MANY pictures of them with their little brothers and family …those are precious, precious treasures when their faces move into another place
What a treasure for you to have Kelly. I feel for you…my mom passed away from Leukemia in 1996 when I was just a few days shy of my 21st birthday, and like your mom, she did not like to have her picture taken, so we have precious few of her. Because I know that I would treasure any photo I had of her, looking her best, or not, I try to purposely include pics of myself in PL, looking my best or not. But, as all of you know, that often has to be a deliberate effort when you’re usually the one behind the camera. Thanks to you and Becky for sharing your story. Although bittersweet, it is a reminder to not wait for the perfect moment, but to live life in the moment.
My heart goes out to Kelly. I lost my sister/best friend last June ( and my grandmother and grandfather and my husband’s grandmother all last year) my sister also started the POTD album Jan 2010…It is a treasure for my brother-in-law and my 6 yr old niece. I’m on year 3 of Project Life…it has truly changed the way I take pictures and see life in general. I have MANY more photos of the loved ones that we have lost in the past year than I would if I hadn’t started project life in 2009. Thank you soooo much Becky for your genius creation!!! I have so so so many photos that I truly cherish!!
Stay strong Kelly!!!
This story gave me goosebumps, thank you for sharing. Documenting life is so important yet something I often forget to do. This is such a great reminder.
I know exactly what this is like. my grandfather was living in a nursing home this past summer since he had his knee replacement removed due to infection and doctors were trying to get him healthy enough to put in a new knee. Grandpa told grandma that he wanted a family picture taken. So I did some whirlwind planning with the family and we all got together for lunch on Father’s Day. After lunch a friend took our family picture. Grandpa passed away about a month later. I am so glad we all took the time to get this final family picture that includes such a wonderful man. I like to believe that he knew his time was coming and that he wanted us all to have this final picture to remember his warm smile.
Kelly,
I am so very sorry to hear about your mother passing. I want to thank you so much for sharing this story with Becky so that Becky could share it with us! I was very touched by your letter–what a great reminder to live in the moment and to capture it. I am so happy that you have that special photo of your mother to cherish. You are a beautiful pair. xo