I have not mentioned my photo book yet which is a bit silly of me since I love the thing dearly. It holds so many photos and memories on the paper.
When I got sick in January, my parents took a good amount of money out of my college fund that I would have dug into next year for school to buy me a nice camera. I had always told them I loved to take pictures of things around me and put them into a book for memories. I wanted to leave something behind for my children to read through or maybe even my husband. After I found out that I wouldn't live that long and I would die before even my mid-life parents and my young friends, I wanted to complete a photo book of my whole adventure of being sick. My parents bought me a nice camera and a big blank book. Every day, there's one new picture and an entry with it. Sort of like a diary almost; a photo diary. Sometimes the picture is a place, sometimes a person, sometimes a smile. I take many pictures because I enjoy capturing a specific time but this relieves my parents - this simple photo book because they know I spill everything into it.
When I do die, I wish for them to sit down with every one of my loved ones and read through it. I hope they smile instead of mourn because my adventure was not a sad experience. It gave me more of a reason to smile and live my life when before, I simply wasted it away.
Sometimes, I find myself wishing that my story and my adventure inspires someone else to go out and live their lives as fully as they can because no one truly knows when their time will come. I wish that someone out in the world realizes this and becomes reckless. That's what life is. A reckless and troubled mess that you have to enjoy before it's too late.