Jamie Was There All Along

This journey recording all these memories of Jamie from childhood until now has been such a healing experience for me.

What literally felt like coming to terms with the huge loss of who I thought my child was to be, instead has offered me an opportunity to see beyond my own fears. An opportunity to truly see and celebrate my child. I have in the process been stretched and have grown and have experienced a greater capacity to love.

This is not to say that there wasn’t loss. There was the loss of what I had thought the future would, and should, hold for my child. I needed to acknowledge and grieve that loss, and then I was given the gift of truly being free to embrace what is.

One of my early thoughts was that I would never want to look at Jamie’s childhood pictures again. I couldn’t see that there would be anything but pain there.

But, as I began to record these painful memories, I first remembered that I probably had a picture somewhere of Jamie wearing Leah’s tutu. I found it!

Then when I was writing about Mrs. Pink, I was so vividly remembering how pretty Jamie had looked. I wondered if I had taken a picture, or if I was too embarrassed to capture it?

That got me digging through so many pictures, and there was Mrs. Pink, in all their beauty!

I immediately took a picture of it and sent it to Jamie, who just happened to be at the Registry of Motor Vehicles getting their name changed on their license. Wow!

Picture after picture emerged where Jamie truly was shining through. 

Another one where Jamie had lipstick applied by a make-up artist in Florida. She had just finished doing Scott’s make-up for a TV interview, and she must have noticed Jamie’s interest and asked if they wanted their face done too.

The earring, the pink shirt, the red heels, the dancing with the fancy boa and so many more. 

I snapped pictures of all of them and texted them to Jamie.