Episode 39: Power of Pictures

Listen on Apple Podcasts Listen on Spotify

Have you noticed how easy it is to document things when life is at it’s best for you? The pictures you take of yourself with other people when you feel like you are at your best. The trips and fun you have with your loved one. The favorite movie you watch and want to post about. 

How about the happy milestones? The last day of chemo that you want to document for them. Ringing the bell after their last radiation treatment. Their first steps all by themselves after a big surgery. 

We take pictures of the happier times don’t we? The happy holiday moments that you all most likely argued about not only in deciding who stands where but for days about what you all were going to wear. We take pictures of the beautiful sweater someone sent him even though he hates the sweater and didn’t want to put it on in the first place. Maybe we take a picture of them right before they go into surgery so we can hold on to that last moment we had of them before everything changed.

Why do we do that?  

Why do we only take a picture when there is reason to smile or at least enough of a reason to fake one? 

As caregivers we get tired of people thinking we have it all together and things are alright when they aren’t. How are they supposed to know things aren’t ok if we always want to celebrate only the good things, only show the good side of us and the life we are living. When we don’t have anything good to share we just don’t share at all because quite frankly we don’t document it.  

We don’t document sitting side by side not being able to look at each other because the fear you would show to your wife or husband or child would be too much for them to bare. We don’t try to remember how much it hurt to hear he has cancer or when you found out your wife was terminally ill. There aren’t pictures of coming home with drains. Of days upon days of them lying in bed. 

We don’t try to make memories out of all the horrible meals we made because we were too tired to cook anything in the first place. The mess our houses are when we don’t have energy to do much at all let alone clean. We don’t take pictures of the hair we haven’t washed in who knows how long or to document that we’ve worn the same outfit all week. 

Looking through the photos on my phone today I have pictures of the snow that fell a few weeks ago. Walks that I’ve taken with my husband and daughter, pumpkins, my dog, a squirrel, trees, the sky a decoration I made for Thanksgiving. I don’t have pictures of my expression when I realize how badly my husband is feeling at that moment or pictures of us both exhausted.  

I’m talking about this today because I fear what will happen when things are not good most of the time. What happens when life gets so overwhelming that I just stop taking pictures? Or when I just give up trying to document the good times.  

I’ve always loved looking at pictures. I remember siting down with my grandmothers’ photo albums when I was a little kid and spending tons of time just looking through them all. They never changed but I loved looking at them. I love sitting with my phone or computer and looking through the pictures I have in them. Laughing at the memories they bring back. Smelling the apple cider donuts as I look at the picture of us waiting in line for them. Hearing my daughter squeal as she goes down the big yellow slide at the state fair with her dad. For me, pictures are more than something to just look at. There’s a story that comes along with it, feelings, emotions. These memories are attached to those pictures and they aren’t something that I can convey with anyone. I can only feel them. They are a prompt that brings me back to that moment for me to enjoy again. 

So when I look back at my photo feed I am upset that for the past 8 months I’ve taken a lot less pictures when I should have been taking more. I haven’t documented what it has been like for my family to live through a pandemic because it just all got too boring. But now I don’t have pictures to document having to have everything delivered to my house. Having a new obsession of buying masks. Or the things we do as a family, like take more walks together. The joy of eating dinner together all the time and the games we play to fill the void left when we couldn’t go out and do the things we used to like to do. I don’t have the picture for me to look at to remind me of how this time felt so that 20 years from now I can pull them out and show them to my grandchild. Or someone else’s grandchild.  

Pictures are important for me. Sometimes there are inappropriate times to take them. I don’t take pictures of my husband when he’s having a neck ultrasound but I will take a picture of the end of the bed he’s lying on or his feet. That picture will remind me how uncomfortable an hour is for him to be there for that. That picture brings me back to so many things that happen when he goes in for that test that I wouldn’t really remember without the pictures help. 

When he goes in for surgery I will take pictures of things I see while I am there. I only take pictures of him when he asks me. These are moments I feel I don’t have the right to document because they aren’t mine to have. But those are just a few small moments in the grand scheme of things. 

When you care for someone, life can feel pretty tiresome and overwhelming or just boring. So there is a real possibility that happy or light moments come and go without us having the energy to notice them let alone take a picture of them. Then you get to a point where there are no pictures that you can look back at years later. Nothing to remind you how much things hurt. Nothing to remind you of the good moments you had. Nothing to remind you of the struggle you both had to go through to get to where you are now. 

So, stop for just a moment. Raise that camera on your phone and snap a picture of yourself or you and the person you care for. You’ll thank me later. 

I would love to see that picture. Share it with me.

Thank you for listening to and supporting the podcast. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it with someone who might benefit from listening to it.

I would be extremely grateful if you would consider taking a minute to leave an honest review and rating for the show in iTunes. They’re helpful when it comes to reaching other caregivers and I read each and every one of them personally!