Family Life: Just a snapshot

As mother's day approaches, I turn to one of my favorite photos. (Well, to be honest, it's one of my favorites that shows my daughter in a discreet way - because posting photos of her on the Internet is something I try generally to avoid.)

I love this image though, because she is running with such carefree joy and it was taken at a family gathering in Maine . She was too young to remember this trip, but old enough to really enjoy the gorgeous weather and landscape that surrounded us. The feel of the grass on her feet. The breeze on her skin as her cousins pushed her on an old wooden swing that hung from the rafters of the barn.

It also makes me think of the things that aren't pictured -- my mother, who was there with us, when she was healthy and not ravaged by the cancer she has been fighting now for more than a year. My disabled sister, who was there with us in Maine as well, walking with her cane, and caution and the help of our strapping cousins, down the green sloping lawn.

This year I think I'll frame this photo and hang it up, as a Mother's Day gift to myself. As a reminder of childhood joy, and family, and summer time.

Theta Pavis is a writer, editor and poet who blogs at the North Jersey Beanstalk (http://www.beanstalknj.blogspot.com/).