Don't take away the pictures

This blog is  somewhat about my mother and of course my brother. In January of 2010, on the seventh day, my mother's boyfriend was hit by a train in Delaware. My mother who suffered from many illnesses  was in and out of hospital's before his death, she took his death hard. She had been admitted to the hospital shortly after is passing for one of her illnesses. She was then later moved into a rehab/nursing home, to get rehabilitated after her long stay in the hospital. We did visit her often, but that didn't make up for the void of her boyfriend, she missed dearly. She had asked someone to bring her in the many pictures she had of her boyfriend. She not only had many illnesses, but she also suffered from depression, due to  tragic loss of her boyfriend and other events in her life. It seemed to my husband and I that she was not progressing rehabilitation or depression wise. My husband and I believed it was having all those pictures of her boyfriend all over making her worse... depression wise, and that was pulling her back from moving forward into her rehabilitation. I insisted that they be removed. After a short time without the pictures, she had her sister bring them back into the rehabilitation center. I never  understood my mother's thinking at times, and thought she was just being stubborn. After the loss of my only brother, I began to realize my mother's thinking and she was not stubborn, but needed those pictures to feel alive. I lost my brother tragically, just as my mother lost her boyfriend tragically. I felt as if I had to have at least a picture or two of my brother in each room in the house, that I spent much time in.... I even had to hang a small picture of him on the refrigerator. Like my mother I went into a deep depression and didn't eat or get out of bed for weeks. There had been some family members worried that I was so depressed because I had so many pictures of my brother everywhere. They felt the same way I did with my mother, when her boyfriend passed, and insisted I take them down. I even had one family member tell me my house was depressing, and another tell me they were going to come to my house, and pack up all the pictures of him. Everyday or every other day I'd call my aunts crying because I felt as though I needed his pictures up to feel as if he was still here with me. They tried to console me and explain to me that I should not worry about what other's think, and that everyone grieves differently. They'd say to me, Brooke, that was your brother, he was murdered and only thirty one years old, you have ever right to feel what you do, and having those pictures up are not hurting anyone. It's been a year and nine days, and those pictures are still where I had them since his death. My mother passed away six months prior to my brother's murder, and I am thankful to the Lord for taking her before his passing. She suffered so much with her illnesses and the tragic loss of her boyfriend, she would have never been able to handle the murder of her only son! His loss is difficult for me and my ten year old daughter, each and everyday, and at times it kills me, and it would have been much worse for my mother.

Homicide victims love hearing us tell stories about them, and watch us put up pictures of them around the house. Those pictures are the galleries of their life, the pictures that captured images of their existence. The ones that told the story of all ever dreamt of having or being.