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Friday, July 13, 2012

sisters

Image

I discovered this picture amongst the vast collection of slides Dad took over the years when we were growing up. This photo is from our trip to California in 1965. I remember this day clearly because I had lost my balance while we were wading on the beach near San Clemente. Thoroughly soaked, I had to spend the rest of the day drying off while we toured the area.
I've been playing with this image on and off for a couple years now, haunted by the juxtaposition of the two figures: my big sister, Lissa, and me. You see, there's a connection we were to share much later in life...
Lissa was treated for breast cancer in 1995, at age 40. She survived, but two years later died from leukemia - a rare result of one of the chemotherapy drugs.
In 2006 I was diagnosed with Stage 0 breast cancer, after a routine mammogram. Having a sister with breast cancer put a red flag on my chart. But I was lucky. My course of treatment was simply lots of tests, biopsy/removal and 5 years of tamoxifen. I don't even really count myself among the brave ranks of "breast cancer survivors" even though I continue to see my oncologist (who was, not coincidentally, Lissa's as well) for a yearly follow-up.
The other day I hauled this image out again, inspired by Kim's tutorial in this week's Beyond Layers post: "Dream-Like." In the end I didn't follow Kim's recipe exactly, but made my own recipe in Rad Lab and set it into an old-school snapshot frame from a site Kim shared with us last week.
This is why I do what I do with photos and Photoshop. It just might end up as a page in my scrapbook...

11 comments:

  1. Beautiful photo, and your story really touched me, i'm glad you are okey.
    Have a wonderful weekend!
    Marie

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  2. I'm glad too you're okay.
    love your editing, very original :)

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  3. Hi Ana, It's nice to meet you.

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  4. I was very touched by your photo of you and your sister playing in the surf. It must have been very hard for you to edit this! It's lovely!

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  5. Sorry for the loss of your dear sister, but I love this image you've shared and even more so - your journaling behind it. Thank you for sharing...

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  6. Thank you Lynne...it is actually comforting to work with photos and memories of loved ones who are gone. I get to relive happy times with them and share their stories and keep their memory alive.

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  7. Hi Kim, nice to meet you! Glad you enjoyed this post.

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  8. What a poignant story, Cindy. I'm sure you hold your sister gently in your heart as you will always love her deeply. Thanks for sharing your story.

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  9. Thanks for looking. Glad to meet another BTS student. Wow...you're probably the only other Lissa I've ever met! :)

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  10. For a new blogger, your work is "pro"!

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  11. Thanks for the encouraging words! There's a lot more to this than meets the eye.

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