My Cure inspiration story

| Posted on 4/28/2009 | Comments (5) | Views: ()

I'm posting this story here that I had written on the general forum. It's one of the reasons The Cure means so much to me. Soon it will disappear off that page but I thought it might be worth posting here for my friends to read. Here it is: At the end of May last year I received a phone call. Terrible news. My daughter's father died suddenly. There would be a funeral service in CO in a few days. So I quickly made preparations and we left. As you can imagine my daughter was stunned by the news. Only 15 years old and she would never see him again. He and I divorced when she was less than two years old. We lived pretty far away from him so she didn't get to see him often. It was only the year before he died that they really started to form a relationship. Now it was too late. The morning after the memorial service we were in our hotel room getting ready to leave for the airport. We were awakened by a clock radio playing music from a local station. Gratefully, my daughter was in the shower out of earshot. I dropped what I was doing when "Pictures of You" began to play. I've been looking so long at these pictures of you that I almost believe that they're real. I've been living so long with these pictures of you that I almost believe the pictures are all I can feel A crushing sadness came over me. It was the realization that all my daughter had left of her dad were pictures, practically all that she ever had. An image of him to look at but could not hear his voice, feel his presence or see him move. Paper doll figures frozen in your mind holding memories that fade until they’re so faint you wonder “did I dream that or was it real?”. Gratefully, I was alone with my tears; I didn't want to add to her grief. When we returned home, I was so moved that I was compelled, driven even, to immediately take the pictures we had of her Dad and create a scrapbook. Catharsis for me; a keepsake for my daughter. "Pictures of You" inspired me to use song lyrics of various artists that her Dad liked including The Cure's. I can't tell you how many times I played "Pictures of You" as I worked. Or how many tears fell, filling, blurring and burning my eyes. Or how I obsessed about completing that book. The pain had to be released, I could hardly breathe carrying the weight of it. Such a heavy burden aching for my daughter as she grieved for her Dad. We shot a few pictures just for the pages with The Cure lyrics. The album now includes a photo of my daughter holding a favorite picture of her Dad. It was the “Pictures of You” lyrics that inspired me to create this book. They were my muse.

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