A Picture Says A Thousand Words

I have this problem of living in the past, well not living in the past but I have a very strong love of reminiscing.  I'm not sure if this is an MD thing or an Ellie quirk.  The other day I was looking through pictures from when I was small. I have one favorite of me and my mom; one that if I hadn't already attached the picture to an album and if I had multiple copies of, that I'd carry around everywhere I went.  So here it is and the story behind it.  What about you?  If you could carry just one picture around of you and your mom, do you have a favorite?

First the story:  My mom was diagnosed with her Ovarian Cancer (the kind she passed of) in January of '98, well December '97/January '98, it's a tad fuzzy.  I remember them telling us on a Wednesday, that part's not fuzzy.  Anyway, after she was diagnosed, there were surgeries and her getting sick and looking BAD, then 3-ish months later, she seemed to be getting better.  3-ish months I remember because my birthday is in March and I was turning 17.  Course it'd been quite a year but somehow we were doing better, maybe she was faking it, pretending to be better for my sake.  I wouldn't put it past her.  Anyway, my birthday rolled around and we ended up having a family party.  Some old friends from our time in Palm Beach happened to be in town and friends of the family, people my parents had known for what seems like forever who now lived in our town, had all descended upon our house for our "little" family party.   I don't remember a lot of my birthdays being celebrated like this.  I remember crappy birthday parties where things would fail like, I'd miss the bus (3rd grade), or in 8th grade when I planned a huge park bday party and no one showed up.  Birthday's weren't my strong suit apparently.  Maybe because the past couple of months had been so different, maybe that's why we kept it just "family" or maybe we wanted it to be even more special but whatever the case it was my family and good family friends.  My mom knew how to make me feel special (I mean whose mom didn't) but she was good at knowing me and making ME feel great.  So we had our bday dinner, our cake and we played stupid birthday party games that my mom had planned out like pin the tail on the donkey.  Yes I was turning 17 and playing pin the tail on the donkey. lol  I remember "cheating" as my mom called it.  The donkey was pasted on our patio door and it was a glass door created out of sections of glass and I had studied the image and after I was blindfolded I simply walked over and "felt" my way to the tail of the donkey.  My mom, smart as she was, knew exactly what I was doing.  I lost for cheating but not after a friendly heated "argument" that I had with my mom.  I tried to convince her that I was merely using my wits to win and not so much cheating.  My argument did not sway her and I still lost, the argument AND the game.  lol  But I digress (as usual).  Everyone was "forced" to play.  When it was my mom's turn I got to blindfold her.  I spun her around a few times and sent her on her way to the donkey.  I don't remember this picture being taken but I'm thankful to whoever took it.  I think it sums up everything.  How much fun my mom always wanted to make things for me, how willing she was to look silly, how much fun we had being silly.  How strong she was even though she'd lost so much weight from the cancer.  How much I loved her.  I may have had some crappy birthday parties in my years but I will never forget the last one I had with my mom and how truly lucky I am to have had it.  My sister wasn't as lucky, her birthday fell one month to the day after our mom died.  But there are things I had she didn't have, but things she had I'll never have (high school graduation with our mom).  I think we're both lucky.  Anyway, this is MY picture, the one that sums of my life with my mom.  And I treasure it daily.  

What does yours look like?