My 19-year-old shoots me a photo for an essay I’ve written and hands over her camera card. Scrolling through, I find this picture of her younger sister taken by my friend Jessica Ojala.
With almost tactile precision, I remember tying my daughter’s little blue shoes, how seriously she and her friend took this photo shoot, how my little daughter ran with her short legs along the pebbled path but was so careful to stay on the paths and not tread on nursery plants.
Look at her little hand on that lichen-covered bench arm and — all around — that gorgeous garden.
Below zero this morning. The now 13-year-old sleeps with one hand on her tabby cat. Same child, different season.
Stony Soil Vermont 
Adorable photo!
Toddlerhood! (And a terrific photographer, too.)
I have one of those pictures of my oldest, only there are two pictures and now the child is a man and the dog a beloved memory. Change is the constant.
I suppose that’s so….
What a beautiful memory. My children have only now begun to understand why I constantly take photos of them… every so often we look at old photos and they themselves marvel at how much they have changed.
That’s such a sweet story! Thanks for sharing 🙂
At your daughters age I too slept with a tabby cat. Forty years later, nothing much has changed, yes it’s a bigger bed now shared with my partner but there is still a tabby cat, squeezed in between us.