Family pictures

I have wanted family pictures even before Corby passed away. One of my biggest regrets was not biting the bullet and just putting it on a credit card to get them done. I was literally waiting until the next paycheck that I got to schedule them. Corby passed away 6 days before that paycheck came. If I had advice to give any family it would be to not wait. Just get them done. You never know what is going to happen. There is never a good time. We are always too busy or don't have the money or what ever your excuse is. It's just that-an excuse. My excuse has cost me to not have a family picture with Corby, and I kick myself daily for it.
Well when I was talking/crying to my friend Brooke shortly after Corby passed I told her that regret not realizing that she is a photographer. I told her that I wanted to have family pictures done still after Corby passed, but didn't quite know how to incorporate him into the picture. I have literally thought about this for over 18 months now. Wondering what I wanted to do. I am part of an email group of other SUDC parents and months ago I remember someone posting a picture of their son looking down on her rainbow baby. He was faded so as to look like he was a spirit. I loved the idea! The hard part about that is you don't have your child there to pose like that so that you can get a picture. You have to have already taken something like that. I knew I didn't have anything like that of Corby so I knew that when Ledgyr came I couldn't do something like that. I racked my brain and looked through thousands of pictures and videos we have of Corby to see if there was one that we could use of him to incorporate into a family picture of us. We hardly ever had a full body shot of Corby so it was posing difficult to be able to use any of the pictures of him. There are a lot of families that use a framed picture of their loved one and sit that with them for the family picture. I liked that idea, but I didn't love it.

It still didn't make it feel like he was there with us. We have our Corby bear too that has sat in numerous pictures with us already and I knew that was a possibility as well, but it still wasn't enough. Especially since only people that knew the Corby bear existed would know why there was a bear in our picture.

I had decided that I had thought about it long enough and I needed to get something done. Not only because we needed to get a picture with both Corby and Ledgyr in it, but because I don't know when something else might happen. We needed to capture the family we do have right now. I contacted Brooke and told her I was looking at doing family pictures. 

You can visit her site by going here. 

She knew that our situation was very different since she has been with us from the very beginning and she knew we needed something special. We needed to include our boy so that it made us look like a whole family and not just us and then a missing piece. She immediately went to work and asked us for different pictures we might have of Corby. Some of them we had. Some of them we didn't. We set the day to be the Saturday of conference weekend. I thought that was a good day because it would help me hopefully feel Corby there with us. To help me get through a very hard photoshoot by feeling the spirit close that day. 

In our SUDC parent email group the question has come up a few times about what other families have done to include their angel in their family pictures. A lot of the parents were heartbroken, just as I was, to think about getting a family picture done without the whole family being there. All were torn because they too knew there needed to be one taken, but wanted their child there in the picture as well. 

Some people may not think about how a simple family photo can be such a heart breaking thing. When you are missing someone in the picture that will never be part of a picture again it becomes a little more emotional. How do you fill that hole in that family picture where a little person should be sitting or standing? How do you subtly include them without screaming to the world "MY CHILD DIED"? It's more of a process than you may think. Hence the 18 months of contemplating. 

The day came and I was so emotionally overwhelmed I thought several times about calling her and canceling. I didn't know if I was going to make it through an entire shoot and hold my tears back. How was I supposed to smile like I was happy when all I could think about was how Corby won't be there with us? I wanted my son there so bad and it was taking everything in me to put on that smile. Brooke was so kind and told me that at any time we could stop if it got too hard for me. There were several times that I wanted to run away and tell her I was done, but I knew that this needed to get done and it would have only postponed the inevitable. 

As we were searching for a place to take our pictures we walked past several other families taking pictures. They all seemed so innocent. There were babies and little kids running around. There were true smiles on their faces. The mothers were stressed, but not the way that I was stressed. They wanted to get that perfect family picture.  I really hadn't thought about being stressed about something that seemed so small to me now. My truly perfect picture would never happen because my son would never physically be in it. Why would I need to be stressed when I knew perfection wouldn't ever be achieved. I stressed about my emotions. I stressed about the sadness I wanted to hide in my eyes and on my face. 

Brooke wanted to take extra care while taking and editing these pictures and I am so grateful to her for all the emotion and time she put into these pictures. I needed someone to treat these pictures special. To want them to be perfect. She did just that. 

With Mother's Day being today it was a wonderful gift to get these pictures. It was especially wonderful to see these two pictures. 

When she told me they were done and I went to look at them I was at work. I sobbed when I saw them. I was so happy, but so sad at the same time. I was so happy that she captured what she did, but sad because I knew that there could have been so much more had Corby been there. I sobbed because I needed to physically see my boy in the picture with us. I needed to see that he is part of our family. Deep down I know he will always be part of our family, but there are times that I don't feel like he is. He has been gone longer than he was here with us and his memories of him seem to come and go now. I love this last picture that Brooke wanted to take and added Corby's hand in. Yes, mister chunk butt has the same size of hands as his brother had when he was over a year old, but I assure you that is Corby's hand and not Ledgyr's. 

It reminds me of porcelain figurines that my mom has at her house. She started with just the 5 figurines kneeling in a circle saying family prayer when there were just the 5 in family. As we have all grown and gotten married she has added our spouses to the circle. Now that we are having children of our own she has now added each of our children to the circle. Family prayer is special to me because of all the things that my family did it was family prayer on a regular basis. The time of the day that we all came together as a family. Most of the time was spent giggling when we should have been praying, but we were also giggling together. Making memories together as a family. When Corby got big enough he loved to play with his little praying figurine. I'm not sure if during one of the times he was playing with it and carrying it around he broke it, but it got chipped somehow. My mom spent a lot of time with Addy and Corby his short 13.5 months he was here because Brock was going to school in the evenings and I had to work. She saw how much Corby loved that little figurine.  So when he passed away she wanted him to have his figurine and put it in his hand in his casket. That was something that she wanted buried with him. She replaced his figurine with a fresh new one and my nephew has arranged them so that Corby is in the middle of our family circle. That hand picture reminds me of that family circle. Our family circle. 

Another part that I had a problem with was I knew that Brooke wanted to get individual and group pictures of us. I felt guilty when she wanted to get a picture of just me with Addy and then one of just me with Ledgyr. I felt like I was leaving Corby out. So we opted for just one of me and Addy and then one with Brock and the boys.

I wish more than anything that I could see those bright blue eyes and blonde hair in Brock's arms as well. 

Brooke captured Addy's bright blue eyes so perfectly and all I could think about looking at her eyes was the photos that she could have captured of my beautiful son as well. He was so photogenic and had the deepest big beautiful blue eyes. That's actually why we are wearing the royal blue. We call that "Corby blue" now and I wanted to incorporate him in our picture one other way. We wore that blue at his funeral and we wear it on special occasions to help include Corby there with us. 

This was his last haircut from his aunt Shy that he received the Monday before he passed. This picture doesn't do his beautiful blue eyes justice, but you can get an idea.

Here are some more pictures that she took that I am also in love with. 

She is such a beautiful loving little girl. I'm not quite sure where she came from with all her posing and always wanting to be glamed out to the nines, but nonetheless she must be mine since she looks exactly like me! She truly is our sunshine baby. From the minute that Corby passed she has tried to keep the sunshine in our lives. She is always coming up to me and hugging me telling me how sorry she is that Corby passed away. I can tell that she is sad and that breaks my heart, but she still puts on a smile for the rest of us. I fear for the day that she is not ok with her brother being gone and she breaks down. 

Brooke wanted to capture this picture when I was trying to feed Ledgyr while she ran to grab something from her car. I don't know anything more beautiful than a mother nursing her child. I was still nursing Corby when he passed away, and it hurt so much to have that ripped away from me. Having that constant reminder as my milk let down that I didn't have my child there to nurse from me. It was such a comfort to me as well as him. He would melt into me when he nursed because he loved it so much. That was one thing that I yearned for and was so grateful to have again when Ledgyr was born. 

Addy loves her daddy so much. This man is such a wonderful loving father. He is my anchor and the rock to this family. He continues to have never ending faith that our son left because it was part of The Plan when I continue to have more doubts and more questions as to why. He has given me countless priesthood blessings that have comforted me in ways that only he and my Savior could do. I am so grateful for his worthiness to hold the priesthood. He knows when I'm not having a good day by just looking into my eyes. 

Now for this little (big) cheeser butt. He is the true definition of a rainbow baby. He has that glow about him and a sparkle in his eye. He is that promise that there is something good that comes out of a storm. He is always so happy and loving. He loves to give kisses to everyone to show his love. He is very cuddly and not to mention squishy! 

The love that she has for her brother is nothing I have ever seen in a sibling before. She was the same with Corbyn, but I think, just like we all do, she feels like she can't take Ledgyr for granted. She told my mom the other day that we had to lose Corby so that we could get Ledgyr and that breaks my heart that she thinks that. I get it, though, I thought that for the longest time too. She has been talking about how she wants a baby sister now. I can't imagine what she had going through her mind if she thought that we had to lose Corby to get Ledgyr and now she wants a little sister. I tried to correct her and tell her that she didn't lose Corby to get Ledgyr and we won't lose Ledgyr to get another baby. I hope with everything in me I'm not wrong though. As I was reading my scriptures this morning I was reading D&C 6 and one of the verses in there says:

Look unto me in every thought; doubt not, fear not

I have to remember to doubt not, and to have faith in Him. 

Ledgyr kissing his sissy

I absolutely LOVE this picture. Every time I look at it is brings tears to my eyes because she was sent here first because of her strength and love. She came to be our sunshine on our darkest days and to be the love that her brothers need. 

Ledgyr loves his sissy so much and is watching her ALL the time. She was trying to get him to smile and was playing peek-a-boo with him and he was cracking up, but at her and not the camera. I still love this shot though. 

Giving his brother kisses. I feel like he knows what that bear represents. I also feel like that he knows who his brother is. I catch him staring at pictures of Corby and smiling all the time. Just today he was getting fussy in church and the only thing that would calm him down was Brock showing a picture of Corby to him. 

I'm so grateful to have finally gotten some pictures done. I'm grateful for the loving, caring, amazing photographer that we had. If you would like to read about our photographer's experience with our pictures you can read about it here. Thank you for taking the time to read our story and thoughts. Please feel free to read previous posts as well.