Last Picture Show

Earlier this morning, I snapped my last first-day-of-school photo of my older daughter who today begins her senior year of high school. While she’ll have many more first days in college, I won’t be there to document them before she leaves for that first class. And I won’t be there with a favorite meal prepared when she returns home at the end of the first day, to hear her rattle off, a mile-a-minute, her first impressions of her teachers and the topics she’ll be studying or what her classmates did over the summer.  I won’t be a part of those first days anymore; they’ll belong entirely to her.  I’ll move from my spot behind the camera to off the set where I can still see the show, but from an entirely different perspective.

I know that there’s still one year left before my daughter leaves for college. Yet if the past is any indication, this year will zip by in the click of a shutter as together, my daughter and I countdown to the last picture on this reel.