07/20/2026
MINNESOTA 🇺🇸 - THE LOST PHOTOS and an overdue tribute. It was December 28, 2024 and it was foggy and drizzly in Minnesota - most unusual weather during Christmas week. I awoke and took these photos in my in-law’s yard. The weather seemed fitting for my mood. We were packed and ready to drive cross country. Just 4 days prior, on Christmas Eve, my Dad had told me he had prostate cancer. Just 1 day after my Mom fell on black ice, no doubt caused by this exact drizzly weather which subsequently froze overnight. In tremendous pain the paramedics (twice) administered fentanyl and (twice) a necessary dose narcan after the fentanyl caused her to stop breathing. But on this day, December 28, I turned and saw my father in law the last time. We hugged goodbye, and for some reason as I walked out the door to begin our cross-country drive to Colorado, I turned and snapped this last photo. He left us for the heavens 2 months later. The portrait captured the very last moment I saw him. Months later, in preparation for his inurnment, I searched everywhere for this photo but it was lost. I was certain I had snapped it, and looked desperately through every camera. With my inability to find it, I had decided I must have been remembering incorrectly. Perhaps I had not captured that moment after all. Until tonight, 19 months later, I was cleaning off SD cards in preparation for an upcoming trip, and I found these images. My heart leapt! That week of my life, it kicked off what turned to be a complete disastrous year that was 2025. I regularly called 2025 my annus horribilis. But now as I look back at these images, all I see is beauty. I see God’s hands caressing the world in his loving care, and yes, also with His tears. I move forward with gratitude knowing that both my parents are healed from their complications and doing well, and that my Father in Law is still with us in our hearts.
