Book of Pictures

I just finished making a iPhoto coffee table book of all the pictures Ashley Carson took at Thanksgiving. I posted some of them in an entry earlier this week. I have put off doing anything with these pictures for nearly six months, trying not to conjure up anymore emotions than necessary. I know what you're thinking, "Hello, then what do you think your blog is doing to you!" But there is something about looking at the pictures and writing an introduction to go along with the book that really got to me. 

How do you write the introduction to the last pictures that you have of your mom looking like your mom?

I found myself starting to write about how much my mom had wanted to take a family portrait, and how guilty I felt for waiting so long to do anything about it. I waited so long, in fact, that she didn't even have interest in looking at the pictures when my dad tried to show them to her. She got so much worse so soon after the pictures were taken, that I'm not even sure she realized we had them. I feel guilty that by the time we took pictures it was because I did finally realize how immanent the prognosis of her disease was. Like, the fog finally lifted and I thought, "Well, we need to do this now or it might not happen." Oh, how guilty I feel for thinking that! Sometimes I think there are so many things I would do differently if I could go back six years to the beginning of the diagnosis. 

Maybe, in the grieving process, I'm on the "upward turn." Instead of dwelling for days about my guilt and letting it affect my daily life, I am choosing to let go of it. Knowing that I can't control the past, only what I do from now on. 

I am thankful my God is a sovereign God.