Say, what's with all the pictures?

People (usually my family and my Facebook friends) say to me all the time "MAN you take a lot of pictures!" and "Geez, you and Matthew are always going somewhere!" And to both comments I say "yes, you're right". The next question is usually "Why?". Well, there's actually a reason behind both. And as much as I wish to one day write my little travel guide for the single mom complete with pictures of Matthew standing in front of the "fill in the blank" attraction, it started, simply enough, just for my dad.

First of all, I'm compelled to say that there was not another person on the face of this Earth that my dad loved more than ME! Oh the sun set on me according to my dad. I was a favorite thing to him. (My brother and I used to joke about it - he was mom's favorite and I was dad's and we were ok with that!) So, I was happy as a lark going through life being a daddy's girl, all spoiled and showered with love and anything I needed and then - along came Matthew! Suddenly I became a distant second in dad's eyes since the coming of Matthew, dad was just goofy in love with that baby! But no sooner was little Matthew born then my husband took a job up in Lenoir, North Carolina. We had to pack up the new family and move a whopping 45 minutes away to Hickory, North Carolina. In dad's mind it might as well have been Saskatchewan...he was so upset that the baby was going to grow up "so far away from home".

When we got to Hickory, the hub was working all the time and I had this brand new baby that at times I wasn't sure what to do with. I was lonely and becoming a little isolated and sometimes even felt like I was as far away as Saskatchewan. I took care of Matthew during the day, painted, unpacked and worked on the house at night. It was quiet and there were days when the only person I talked to was a 2 month old baby! It was the first time in almost 20 years that I didn't go to a job and work for a living - it was just Matthew and me. I was grateful for the opportunity to stay home and raise my son but I didn't, make that COULDN'T stay at home for long! I was about to go crazy inside the 4 walls of my new house and I had to get out of there and go see something different - or go talk to someone who could answer without cooing, gurgling or spitting up on me!

Meanwhile my dad was at his home missing us, make that Matthew, terribly. He called a lot but we had to be mindful of the long distance charges. It was before facebook and dad had no desire to learn anything about email. I really was a long way away for him and he worried himself sick over us. I went home a lot - but he would worry about that too, saying stuff like "you're burning up the highways with that baby in the car!" He would be thrilled to see us (baby Matthew) but wouldn't be happy until we made it back to Hickory in one piece! I was sort of stuck.

So dad, bless his soul, not wanting to miss one more minute of Matthew's little life and not wanting me to risk life and limb by driving anywhere went out and bought me a Cam-corder so I could video every little exciting thing that Matthew did! So I did. I recorded Matthew lying on the floor, Matthew batting at toys, Matthew flipping over, Matthew's face turning red when he was pooping, Matthew eating baby food and spitting it out. Dad was content with the 'footage' and according to mom watched the tapes over and over (bless his heart!) I got a little bored video taping Matthew sitting in the play-pen and again the 4 walls were starting to close in on me so we started to go out to the local parks just to get pictures and video of Matthew lying on a blanket in the grass or in front of something different than my house! At least it gave dad something different to look at (even though he would give me a hard time about 'taking that baby to a park where muggers could be lurking' or 'germs from some sick kid could get on him'!)

When I exhausted every 'photo-op' every local park in my area had I started looking on-line for some other "baby-friendly" places to go. And go we did! Over that next year Matthew and I went all over the place, snapping pictures and shooting video of our "adventures". For dad I made photo albums, had calendars made for him out of pictures of Matthew, tee-shirts, coffee mugs, framed 8x10's. The pictures became some of dad's favorite things and the videos kept him close to his favorite person.

When dad got sick the pictures and the videos became even more important to him. The more he couldn't get out the more I wanted to go somewhere - just to make pictures of Matthew for my dad. A handful of simple snapshots could make his whole day seem better. The last pictures dad saw were of our trip to the Asheboro Zoo and Matthew's visit with Santa Claus. I took the photo album to the hospital when he asked me to and he took one of the pictures out of the book and kept it by his bed until he died. When dad passed away he had 18 hours worth of cherished memories on video and a little building full of photographs - we even sent some of the pictures with him. Since dad's been gone Matthew and I have been countless places. Every trip we've ever made or any picture I've ever taken in some way reminds me of my dad - if for no other reason than I "burned up the highway" to get us to where we landed that day! Now-a-days I just post my pictures up on Facebook but occasionally I still take a picture or two over to the cemetary. What started out as a way to get out of the house for a minute became something so special for my dad - and subsequently me, and now Matthew - that I can't imagine NOT going somewhere and very definately not taking a picture of it!