The Girl with the Smile

I have waited a week to back blip today’s entry, because I could not decide how best to represent the day. 
This morning, my wife’s youngest sister eventually lost her battle with cancer. For many weeks, indeed months, our lives have been affected  by her illness, as my wife travelled frequently up the motorway to visit her, and I sometimes acted as her driver or assisted in other ways so that she could support her sister and the family.  Our summers are generally busy anyway, and the desire to be with her has, inevitably, had a significant impact on us.  Indeed, it is one reason why I have been struggling to keep up with daily blipping and have been unable to join the several blipmeets which I would otherwise have liked to attend.
So what photograph could I possibly take for today’s blip?  Photographs can act as a wonderful reminder of life’s events and of our friends and family.  It is, then, no surprise that we have spent some time today looking through photographs of my sister-in-law and reminiscing about times past.  One dominant feature in the photographs of her is her ever present, infectious smile, which lasted through her illness and treatment.  On my desk I have one of the photographs of her taken on her wedding day;  I also have one of the last photographs that I took of her, when she came to support her daughter and me as  we took part a few months ago in the Swimathon, a charity swim to raise money for the wonderful Marie Curie Cancer Nurses.  In both images, she is smiling happily.  I photographed them as they lay on my desk, and it is this photograph of photographs that I have chosen to blip.
Christine, you will always be remembered as a favourite aunt, a caring mother and wife, a dear daughter and sister. You touched and brightened the lives of so many people.  You were taken from us far too soon, but will live in our memories as the girl with the smile.