Laughter

When my G'ma Jo was dying a few years ago, the entire family gathered at her house for a final spring cookout. My cousins from far away were able to come and we took as many pictures as we could. Sweet Sophia was only 3 and oblivious to the emotion and magnitude of the day. She ran and laughed and played with her cousins and the happiness there brought a lot of joy.

Grandma died just a few weeks later. She'd been fighting emphysema and lung cancer for a while and those last terrible days did not last long, thank God. We loved (and still do) looking thru the pictures from that day of joy earlier in May. This one was one of my favorites of my baby girl. I saw this design concept using vellum in an old Simple Scrapbooks magazine and ran with it. I think the materials used help to create the sense of surrealism that surrounded us that day. Beneath the frosted tag, it says "laugh."

The journaling reads: Sophia at Grandma's last picnic. Your laughter brought her so much joy. After she was gone, it helped Mimi heal. June '06