08/19/2026
Around 3 a.m. this morning, my grandma joined my grandpa in Heaven. 🤍
I try to keep my personal life separate from my business, but some people deserve to be remembered as loudly and as widely as possible—and my Grandma Michele is one of those people. Today, I want to use this little corner of the world to share our love, our memories, and our grief.
Cancer took her from us far too quickly. But in the middle of this heartbreak, there is comfort in knowing that she is no longer hurting—and after all these years, she is finally reunited with my grandpa.
I will forever be grateful that my husband, my kids, and I were able to spend a long weekend with her in St. Louis before school started. We were able to love on her, sit with her, and say goodbye. And even while the fight was draining the strength from her body, she was still her—stubborn, sassy, and just as beautiful as the very first memories I have of her.
There is something incredibly heavy about losing your last grandparent. It feels like the closing of an entire chapter of your life. And it puts so much into perspective—especially the realization that as I move further into this one singular life I’ve been given, there will come a point when life begins taking more people than it gives you.
But how lucky I am to have had so much to lose.
I am grateful for the summer of 2025, when we spent an entire week together doing so many of the things with my own family and Grandma Michele that I grew up doing with my grandparents.
I am grateful she came to Oklahoma that fall and spent Thanksgiving with us.
I am grateful I convinced her to climb into the paddock with the horses so we could finally take those long-overdue family photos.
I am grateful my children got to know her, laugh with her, and make memories with her.
And more than anything, I am grateful that we got the chance to say goodbye.
As a photographer, I say this all the time—but today, those words carry a weight I wish they didn’t:
Take the photos, guys.
Take them when you don’t feel pretty enough. Take them when the house is messy. Take them when the kids won’t cooperate. Take them with your parents. Take them with your grandparents. Take the blurry ones, the imperfect ones, and the ordinary ones.
Because one day, a photograph may be the closest thing you have to being in the same room with someone you would give absolutely anything to see again.
Rest peacefully, Grandma Michele. 🤍
You were deeply loved, and you meant more to me and to my family than you could have ever possibly known.
Michele Romane
May 20, 1940 – August 18, 2026
I hope Grandpa was there waiting for you. 🤍
