A Visual Trail of Delight

It has been a year since my mother died. This week I finally decided to go through the large bin of my mother's photographs. I picked out the pictures Ma had taken of my husband, our daughters and me. My sisters have to go through the bin and pick out what they wish to keep, too.

There are a lot of photos of scenery. My mother's passion was painting. She started out in oils and later switched to watercolors. A prolific artist, she was always searching for a new scene to capture so that she could paint it later. There are photographs of old barns, covered bridges, flowers, seascapes, pastoral farm scenes, and the overflowing abundance of a harvest of fruit.

Few of the photos are labeled though I do recognize some of the locations. There are hundreds of these photographs. Each one is a project my mother did not get a chance to complete, which is a rather depressing way to think of the situation. The fact is that each picture also represents the hope she had to do more.

My mother loved to paint. It gave her joy. Each photograph holds a spark of excitement that I can almost feel as I hold the picture in my hand. It's like I'm looking through the lens and getting that little tickle inside telling me this is going to be fun.

My mother left a wonderful legacy behind her, a visual trail of the delight she experienced in God's beautiful world.