I am a believer that beauty always surrounds us, even the most mundane locations can hide glorious finds. Finding that moment has the ability to brighten the darkest of days, sometimes these moments though are not enough to heal the broken, but are enough to keep us strong for one more day and help us take that next step in healing.
I had no intention to start this blog on on a sad note, sometimes though it’s better to go with what your heart needs to share. The truth is it is important to remember to treasure the little things, which helps and continues to help me through a sad time in our home. My husband and I recently lost our kittie Welkie, it was very sudden and unexpected. She was a kittie who helped us through some rough and heartbreaking times, who would get excited with us in the happy times, and her love was always reassuring and healing all on its own. Welkie, a Maine Coon and Bengal mix (plus some kitty equivalent of a mutt), was named after Wes Welker who at the time was a Wide Receiver for our local New England Patriots, a name chosen before we even met her, but decidedly perfect given her extra toes and ability to pull any toy thrown her way out of the sky.
Welkie and I first bonded during our independent recoveries from surgery; she had to have extra toes removed as they were impeding the growth of healthier toes (she still had many extras to spare), myself from ankle reconstruction where I too had bones removed, in my case the accessory navicular in my ankles that had been pulling too tight on my tendons and causing unnecessary pain. The bond grew quickly as we both healed, she had a rough start before we found each other, yet despite that, she came to trust me explicitly to the point where she would jump or roll off of something and know that I would catch her before she hit the ground, and I would, anything for her.
Welkie could do tricks like a dog, even played fetch, and till her last day still followed me around like a puppy, she was my constant shadow. She would wait for us by the door even after just a short time away. Then after kisses, she would rush to her scratcher to show us how excited she was to see us. Our days started, ended, and were filled with her, our routines permanently tied together. It is amazing the silence that a soul leaves behind when it moves on from this world. Our hearts are broken and my eyes seem to always be filled with tears; her empty spot on the couch, the bird feeder without its constant guard, the missing chirp that she would make as she woke up checking that we were close by as she reached for us then curling back to sleep once our hands or heads were touching her. Everything is filled with her and her memories, yet in the same moment, this house has never felt so empty.
Here is where the story takes a turn; we have professional level images taken with my SLR’s (Single Lens Reflex, aka big camera with exchangeable lenses) and thousands of photos and videos taken with our iPhones, each is just as precious. With the larger cameras we caught details impossible to catch with our phones and have large professional prints to remember her by, yet large cameras aren’t always close or realistic in the moments of life. The phone images, despite their inferior detail, are just as important to us. SLR photos can be enlarged more than others and are definitely sharper, but they all have their place in our hearts. It is important to cherish the small moments in our lives, no matter what camera is nearby.
I am lucky to have family and friends who understood that Miss Welkie was oh so much more than just a pet. A best friend knew that cuddles with her pup and giggles with her toddler, not to mention her own strong arms and words, were exactly what I needed in those first few days. She didn’t try to make me forget – but to remember to laugh, love, and that it is okay to cry, especially at nap time!
A Mom, who also loved Welkie with her whole heart, she was a big part of Welkie’s life as well for it was at my childhood home that I recovered from that surgery back in 2010. It was there that she and my Dad helped me bring Welkie home from the shelter. It was her, that this past week, whisked me away to my favorite place in Maine, ensuring I had my camera with me as she knew that doing one of my favorite activities in my favorite place would be an important step in my healing, and in so many more ways than she probably could have hoped for, it was.
Most healing for me these last couple of weeks has been my husband, my rock who has loved me with so much strength since we had to say goodbye to her. As crushed as he also was at losing Welkie, he realized that my working from home all week in an empty home was getting to be too much for me. Despite working full-time while obtaining his doctorate, he pushed his own homework to the side, and like my Mom before him, ensured that I had my camera and whisked me off to find the only thing I could come up with that I wanted to see…a semi-frozen river.
In these days I have treasured the random photos that we took of our love, glad that I never listened to that little voice in my head that told me to stop taking so many pictures of the kitten. I’ve also found refuge in the gorgeous that is so often hidden by the mundane. My favorite photos that I captured in the past week include an old boat line abandoned in a wooden barrel covered in snow that was just in an off-season harbor parking lot; a frozen tributary that runs under a random highway; and a rushing river that runs under an old abandoned railway trestle bridge…that at night is illuminated by a gas station. Beauty is never far from any of us, we just have to open our eyes and sometimes our hearts.
Capture these little moments to keep for the darker days, yes the higher quality images may be more suitable for your walls, but sometimes that slightly blurry photo of your kitten playing fetch or that blown out sunset photo from your last beach vacation can help you move through those harder days and these long winter nights. All of which assist in your recovery, sometimes with tears in your eyes, so that you can get back to living your wonderful life and loving all of the gifts it has to offer. Just as we can’t have light without dark, the sad times are there to remind us to cherish those happy joyful ones.
Beauty is all around us, don’t let the rush of life make you miss it.
If you have room in your home and heart there are many animals in need of a forever family, Petfinder.com is a national connector for people to search for their future fur friends, it’s like Match.com but for pets.
Be sure to check out our main site, www.JulesBF.com, thank you for stopping by!
xo,
Jules
Photography by JulesBF 
Leave a comment