Family Portrait
The Georgian family portrait features a mother and her two daughters. One daughter clasps her doll, her older sister dangles a string of flowers, and their mother sports a parrot on her hand, a fashionable pet for upper-class eighteenth-century households. Woven hair on the back of the pendant may memorialize the father who is missing from the painting or a deceased child.
I have many family pictures of myself and my two daughters. Their father exited the photos after we divorced. When I remarried, the girls gained a stepfather who entered the frame. After much lobbying from my girls, a Shetland Sheepdog joined the picture as well. I never imagined that future family portraits would be minus my older daughter Alix. She rendezvoused with heaven at age twenty-five.
Do you have family portraits with and without a loved one who passed on?
I have a friend who had a photographer add her daughter into their family portrait. It was quite beautiful.
I gaze at the ones with our family in tact, and realize I never truly knew how blessed I was until my son was ‘missing.’
Tender memories indeed for us all who live into this daily reality. 💜🪶
Oh, that first family portrait without Garrett felt so wrong! It still does. He will forever be part of my family. I am still considering having him added to the photo. AI can do wondrous things.