Broken Reflections

I posted a version of this picture on my 365 blog, it seems like months ago, but it really was just a little more than a week ago. It was last Monday to be exact. I took it the day my mom admitted her memories were all mixed up. She had called me quite a few times in a panic not knowing what day it was, what time it was, or what had just happened. I think it was the first day I really and truly admitted to myself that the cancer was in her brain and that her tiredness and confusion wasn't just the chemo side effects.

It looks like a brain trying to remember to me. In the first version the reflections are even harder to see, in this version, while the memories are still broken they are beautiful and clear. The water looks calm, beautiful and deep. The colors are rich and peaceful. As I have been working on building a scrapbook of my mom's life today, stories are pouring in through emails about how Mom changed lives, I realized this photograph also represents my memories of my mom. I will never see her full reflection, it will be constantly broken because she lived a full life outside my awareness, but the memories people are sharing are deep and beautiful.

How did I get from one vision to the other?... Friendship. A friend knew I wasn't totally happy with the first version so she tweaked' and deepened the image for me. My mom's friends are tweaking and deepening my memories of her too. I am realizing a clean, clear simple reflection is boring....one broken with rough spots, twists, turns, and twigs is much more fascinating.