I first met Sandy in a scrapbooking store when our oldest children were in preschool (more than ten years ago.) I overheard her conversation with someone else and I wondered if her son might be my daughter’s preschool friend. We ended up talking and confirming that our children were in the same class. And then we bonded over scrapbooking (one way of leaving a legacy) and our preschool-aged kiddos.

Scrapbooking was big at the time, which was right before I really started to learn photography. I was all in. I had the paper, some punches, stickers, stamps, buttons, Silhouette . . . you name it. At some point, I attended a scrapbooking weekend retreat when a question came up about the most important factor in making a good scrapbook page. Someone answered that it was the layers on a page or some other design element. And I remember thinking, no, the most important component of a great scrapbook is the photographs! The photos are the emotions and memories. They are what the scrapbook is all about–the reason for the scrapbook in the first place! The papers and embellishments can make the pages pretty and give them dimension, but ultimately, they frame the stories told by the photographs. The people in the scrapbooks make the scrapbooks what they are.

And while we’re talking photographs, I wonder how many mothers include themselves in their children’s scrapbooks. They have pictures of all the other family members, but oftentimes the moms are the ones behind the camera taking the pictures. So when their children go through their photo albums, reliving their younger years, a huge chunk of their lives is missing from those books.

Personal experience has taught me that after we leave this world, (and even while we’re still in it) our loved ones look for photos of us. They smile and laugh and cry as they remember all the times–regardless of the quality of the pictures. And they also look for “a good picture,” one where your face isn’t dark or blurry or your expression awkward. They try to find an image that characterizes you in the best way possible. They want to show your features and personality to the world and they want it to be clear, flattering, and emblematic of you.

I hope these images of Sandy are a part of her legacy. She is a gorgeous woman with the most welcoming smile. She is also a brilliant and caring physician and an independent thinker. Perhaps most importantly, she is a mother setting the example for her children. I hope that someday, her children look back at these and recognize themselves in her. Imagine these photographs (and more) in an album or framed on the wall. I envision her children smiling to themselves as they think of their mom and talk about her–maybe to their own children.