Family Pictures

In 2006 we had family pictures taken at Sears.  It was right before Christian, Taryn and I moved to Colorado.  Garrison and Misty were staying in California and it about tore out our hearts to be leaving them behind.  So I made an appointment to have family pictures done.  I'll forever be grateful for those decisions.  I love these pictures.  They give you a little glimpse of the past that warms your heart.  I did scrap books when the kids were little but I'm way behind in catching them up.  That's on the agenda for retirement.  By then who are we kidding?  I won't remember anything! hahahaha

 The kids looked so cute in these pictures.  Christian still had a chubby little face from his baby days, he was 14 here, Garrison still had hair and he was about 19, Taryn was 16.  Misty was Garrison's girlfriend but even then we knew she was going to be a permanent edition to our family.  Taryn always considered her a sister.  This was my little family.  My kids.  The reasons I lived and breathed.  It's still like that except now there's Kate who married Christian, Killian their little boy, then Garrison's two sons, Jaxx and Dean.  I consider Adrian my son too.  When he gets married again and has children they will be my grandchildren too, they'll be Kayan's brothers and sisters.  

Some of the facial expressions on Taryn's face are so cute.  People tell me we look alike, which was always such a compliment to me because I always considered her one of the most beautiful girls I'd ever seen.  She was just Taryn and didn't think of herself that way.  Other people did though.  Every mama thinks her kids are pretty.  I've always been proud of mine.  They are such amazing people.  They are kind and compassionate.  Taryn was so worried about minorities and very outspoken for their needs. Her husband was Hispanic/Black and that was a huge part of her life.  Her best friend Nikki is Hispanic too so that played an enormous part in her thought process.  

Taryn was fiercely protective of Christian.  He was her baby from the time he was born.  She even fed him his bottles and sang to him when he was a baby.  She sang that song from Barney the purple dinosaur, Skittla Rinky Dinky Dink, Skittla Rinky Doo, I love you... we have that on tape and it's precious, her singing to him.  She was close to Garrison too and never let anyone say anything bad about him.  They fought like siblings do but no one else could rag on Garrison, just her.  LOL  When Taryn was little Garrison played with her so cute.  She had this little shopping cart we bought her so she could learn how to walk and Garrison would plop her in the cart and run around the house pushing her in it.  She would laugh and squeal with delight when he did that.  He loved his little sister.  I was so sick when I was pregnant with Christian that often times Garrison would help me feed Taryn because being around food made me so nauseous.  He was only 4 years old but could make a burrito in the microwave for himself and feed Taryn for me when I needed him to.   Garrison was and always has been such an amazing little boy.  He took care of us and still does.  

This picture is so funny. Taryn didn't like it much because the photographer extended our pointer fingers to look more like guns and she always said it looked like we all had ET fingers.  hahahaha  I never asked the photographer to do that but it's done now so she laughed at it a lot.  Misty looks board to tears, I look silly and Taryn looks a little confident and fierce.  Out of the three of us she's the one with the "Don't mess with me" look on her face.  Her signature flip flops and she always wore a wrist band at that time.  There was a reason for that.  She was a cutter for a time.  I didn't know she was suffering so badly when her father and I divorced.  Cutting your skin is something young kids were doing to feel physical pain when they were in emotional pain.  When I first saw what she was doing I felt so horrible that I didn't know how bad it was for her.  She ended up getting a tattoo to cover the scars on her wrist.  It was a tattoo of a beautiful lotus flower with an ohm inside it.  She had found her "peace" and I thought it was a beautiful message to herself when she did that.  I vowed to spend more time with her once I realized she was in such emotional pain over what happened to our family.  She was okay after that.  

We don't always know what our kids are going through and the depth of what they feel.  Sometimes we are the last ones to know they hurt, especially when they are teenagers.  All of mine went through the tough stuff.  Christian did too.  He would go on these long fasts and not eat anything.  He and I talked about it some years later and he admitted to me he was trying to end it all by not eating.  I always thought I was close to my kids but even with the closeness we had I still missed important stuff and most parents do.  We can't know everything they feel because there will come a time when they stop sharing that information with us.  

Garrison got reckless.  He drove like a maniac and took insane chances driving and hanging out with his friends.  I prayed constantly for guardian angels to watch over my children during that time in their lives.  I'm grateful they all made it through their teenage years without a serious injury.  I have nothing but admiration for parents who are going through raising teens.  It's hard!  We do the best we can and even when we do that it's sometimes not enough.  

I told them I loved them all the time.  We do that a lot.  We say those words to each other every time we talk on the phone, say goodbye in person or text.  It's real important that we all know how we feel about each other.  We did that even before we lost Taryn but especially now since we did.  I wish I got to see them more and we do the best we can to hang out and have fun together.  My family is and always will be the greatest accomplishment of my life here.  The reason I'm breathing and learning still.  Without them there's not much point really.  Family is everything.  Everything to me.