Picturing the future

I haven't taken photos since Sandy died. This is not a time I want to memorialize, and she's not here to share them with, anyway. I've wondered if I'd ever take photos again, and whether I'll look at photos and think "with Sandy" versus "after Sandy died."

He was sleeping until I ran to get the camera, of course.

A year ago, we borrowed a sheepskin from friends to see if sleeping on it would help Sandy's hip. The hope was that we could buy something smallish instead of investing in an entire new mattress. It didn't help, unfortunately, but Sandy didn't want to return it until we'd washed it — and we couldn't figure out quite how to do that. This weekend, those friends said I should just keep it, as they'd bought it for their cats but the cats weren't interested in it, anyway. So, after a year of keeping it out of the boys' reach, I put it one of their favorite chairs and invited them to explore.

An hour later, Nada was nesting contentedly. I suddenly felt compelled to take a photo. To share with the friend who gave us the sheepskin, but also just because it's a Nada moment I want to hold on to.

I'm pretty sure this was Nada on Sandy's lap, when the
kittens were small and hard to tell apart.

I don't know whether Sandy wanted the photo (she was usually the one urging me to run and get the camera before the cat moved) or whether this was entirely my doing. But this is one more threshold I've crossed, one more barrier torn down between me and looking forward, a commitment to a future when I'll want to look back and see Nada the first time he nested on the sheepskin.

It was six months ago today that we learned we were completely out of options, that the cancer had won. All we could do was to help Sandy write her last chapter with as much grace and as little pain as possible. Six months ago, hope fled. Though I'm still not sure what I would hope for in the future, taking those photos made me think that maybe hope will reappear eventually.