my daughter is amazing, and so are her pictures.

A couple of days ago, I had someone tell me that pictures of my beautiful daughter "bothered" them.

That is not only incredibly offensive to me, it is disrespectful to my daughter.  And that with me is crossing a line you can't cross back over.

This, thankfully, is the only occasion anyone has said anything like that to me.  Everyone else who has seen her has talked only about how beautiful she is.

But I feel the need to write a little about it, because this is the way I see this situation.

There are two ways to look at the pictures of sweet, perfect Virginia.  There is the way this person obviously does: to see her death.  They look at her, and see only that she has died and absolutely nothing else.  And yes, that can be painful because her death is incredibly tragic.  But her life is not.

Which is what brings me to my view, the view I feel most have had when looking at her.  When I look at her pictures I see her, not death, not just a baby who no longer lives, I see my daughter.  And dear Lord she was so gorgeous. I see that.  I see how absolutely perfect she is, and that John and I created something that incredible.  I see how much I love her.  I see how much she inspires me to be more compassionate and to be better, how much she's taught me, how amazing she is.  I see how unbelievably grateful I am that I had her, that I am her mother, and that she is a part of my life.  I see how thankful I am to have pictures, because I carried her long enough to be able to hold her and have those pictures, and they are absolutely the most precious possession I have.  I see her, just her, and her life.

So you can focus on her life and how wonderful she is.  Or you can focus on her death, which just seems like a messed up way to think about her.  I hate that there are people who could think she should be hidden and shouldn't be seen or that she is just a negative or unfortunate thing that happened.  Her death is.  She is not.  She is the best damn thing that has ever happened to me, and I keep pictures of her e.v.e.r.y.w.h.e.r.e. and always, always will.