A week of Thanksgiving-Special Memories

Welcome to day 2 in the Week of Thanksgiving. 

It’s kind of late(ish) and I’m tired (it’s not even 8pm and I am tired, what is wrong with me) and my brain doesn’t seem to be functioning well enough to come up with my own prompt so I will be using one of Andreas. I chose “a picture that means a lot to you (and why)”.

As soon as I read this I knew what picture I was going to use which is really saying something. If you don’t know me let me introduce my self briefly. 

Hi, I am Shana and I am a photography addict. I currently have over….wait, let me confirm this number…. holy shit I have over 74,000 pictures stored on my computer and that number grows on average of 5,000 a month. And these are just pictures of my family and things I find during every day life.

Wow okay looking at those numbers it makes it look like I may have a problem. Heh oh well. I love photography so who cares. Back to the point of this post. The photo that means a lot to me.

This was my Grandfather riding a Harley for the first time in his life. It was on his bucket list of things to do and my parents arranged for one of his dreams to come true. He passed away a few days after I captured this photo. 

Every time I look at this picture it brings a flood of emotions. Sadness and ache but most of all love. I loved my Grandpa and I know he loved his family with all his heart. I am beyond thankful that my children were able to know him. My oldest who is seven got to know him the most since the other two are still a bit young and my oldest still misses him. He will randomly mention something they did together or something about him that happened years ago. I can pull up a photograph of him when he was a mere twenty years old and my son has no hesitation is saying “hey that’s Zaydee”. It immediately melts my heart. 

I miss him a lot sometimes. I’m not sure if that feeling will ever go away but over time it has become easier to talk about him and not instantly break out into tears. I am thankful that he lived such a long beautiful life and that for 28 years of that life I am thankful that he was such an amazing Grandpa to me.

The picture above is one that will forever hold a place in my heart and I am thankful I was able to be a part of that memorable day and that I captured that day in photographs for generations to look back on such a happy day.