"Storyworths" -- I don't want your photograph!

I don't know if you're familiar with Storyworth, but it's a site dedicated to capturing your loved one's memories and keeping them in a book. A year ago, my wife "gave" me a year subscription to the site (part-time job) for my birthday and said "DO IT!" I'm like, but what about my stack of journals and blogs? 

Some of those journal entries are adorably written in crayon

Her response was, "There's no way I'm reading your stack of journals! That is crazy, and I can barely read your handwriting!" Ok ok, I get it . . . I've been wasting my time my whole life cataloging my boring adventures of Tuesday in an unreadable font known as "My Handwriting Scribble LT."   

Basically how Storyworth works is that your significant other buys a subscription as a gift to their loved one. Then, along with the help of Storyworth's suggestions and interest prompting, your significant other develops a long list of questions for you to answer. Finally, every week for a year you're sent a question prompt to answer: 52 Questions in total.

A sampling of my Storyworth Questions . . .

So far I've managed to answer 44 of the 52 questions, which is pretty good, but I have a slew I just don't know if I'll ever get to. I have three months to wrap it up before my access goes away and the printed book that comes along with the subscription is sent to my family.

The Stage Four cancer diagnosis really kind of scared everyone. We didn't know (and really, still don't know) how long I'll have beyond what the doctors tell us is the average life expectancy, which is really just the average from decades of dart throws at the wheel of life for everyone who has ever had NSCLC Lung Cancer.

. . . and so I'm happy to answer the questions.  Today I answered this one: 

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What photograph do you most regret not taking when you had the opportunity?

I know this is going to sound strange because it just happened and it's not some super old, cherished memory or something, but the photograph I most regret not taking happened during this last 4th of July. For the past couple of years, we've been going to a local 4th of July parade that's pretty legendary. It's a "candy parade." They have to have police go up and down the sides of the parade just to make sure kids aren't running out and grabbing a stray piece beyond the edge of the bicycle lane.

I've been going to this parade mostly because Sawyer plays the mellophone in the marching band, but for the past two years, it's also coincided with either my father-in-law or mother-in-law visiting. My thing is finding little stray pieces of candy no one has grabbed yet and giving them to my elderly guest.

Anyway, this last 4th of July there was this panicked mother that kept screaming at her kid to GET BACK OVER HERE! She had to be in her 20's and dressed in these really nice white cowgirl boots with white fringe. She had gotten all gussied up for the day and was obviously not paying very good attention to her kid. This kid must have been 3 or 4 years old, not very old at all. He was either a fantastic escape artist or she was incredibly distracted.

This is where the photograph comes into play. At one point this scene unfolds right in front of me where she's yelling at her kid and he's unable to vocalize anything. She then realizes that he's stuffed about three or four pieces of yellow taffy into his mouth and can't swallow it.  It's just a giant wad stuck in his mouth. At that moment, crouched down near her kid, in these fancy white boots and expensive, gussied-up, country girl outfit . . . hair perfectly done . . . that she commands her child to spit out the taffy wad in his mouth into her hand.

That's the picture, and I missed it. This goofy kid unleashed the most amazing spit-filled, giant yellow glob of taffy into his mom's hand. He's got this dumb smile on his face that's also mixed with a bit of relief and sugar sadness. She's sitting there with a disgusted look on her face mixed with the emotions of what do I do with this, meanwhile she's spent an hour or more getting ready and looked pristine aside from her hand filled with yellow goop and spit. It captured a feeling that's something akin to everything that a candy parade with a young unprepared, yet fully prepared, mom should be -- a juxtaposition of kid-gross and glam-mom, white boots and yellow taffy . . . where my mother-in-law and I were pretty much the only audience members amongst a sea of legs in shorts that were all instead watching a local parade.

This kid kept running away from his mom the whole parade and she kept yelling after him during the whole event. I had my phone camera prepped in case something amazing like that happened again, but it never did. I would have loved to have that as a picture, but perhaps the picture of it in my mind is better than it would have turned out.

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I've been doing the best I can to capture the essence of "me" for this book. Hopefully it'll be much more accessible for my family than my handwritten journals.

Happy Dueling!