I finally figured out what it means to have a passion for something.  And I like it.

I’ve wanted to write and take pictures since the 4th grade.  But, in my day, neither writing or taking pictures were considered viable career choices. Instead a girl should be a nurse or secretary so I did the nurse’s aide thing through high school and college. Then I worked as a secretary for years and years and years, while my dream to write and take pictures lingered in the back of my mind.

My pastor gifted me with a black and white Brownie camera when I graduated from 8th grade – the very first validation of my dream.

Fast forward to my college experience. It truly is laughable now. But here’s the scene.  Me, the naïve country girl who fears authority, is assigned an 85-year-old counselor. I tell him I want to write and take pictures. He tells me, “That sounds like an advertising major!” I say, “Okay.” After 5 years of generals to mold me into a “well-rounded” journalist, and 3 years of advertising law, I managed to cram in one semester of black and white photography and one article-writing class.  (I know.  Right?)

Nearly 10 years later I bought my first nice Canon film camera.  At the time I was working at a newspaper in California making $4 an hour, which didn’t leave much money to buy film. Wanting to use my camera more, I came up with the idea that I would travel up the west coast and take pictures, and work through temporary agencies as I went to finance my marvelous adventure.  I called my parents, all excited about my plans. Before I knew it, they had arranged to have my cousins escort me back to Denver where I could be a reasonable person and get a real job. (You’re right. I had a lot of growing up to do – but it was too late for this plan.)

Somehow things work out because I met my husband in Denver. After I got married, buying the film was no problem. But my husband traveled all the time, so I turned into that mom who was way over the top when it came to taking pictures of the kids.

I finally started freelancing for small newspapers and magazines. It was always such a rush coming home from those interviews with the story forming in my head. I absolutely loved it.  It didn’t pay enough to put gas in my car to drive to the interviews, but I justified it by thinking I was building a resume and gaining experience.

When the kids went off to college, my husband and I moved back to my hometown in Nebraska so I could be near my aging parents who both had dementia. Eventually, they came to live with us.  About a year later, my daughter got pregnant, so we added her to the household so I could take care of the baby during the day while she finished school. Four months before she had the baby, we found out my husband had lung cancer.

The timeline here is blurry, as I suppose most of life was blurry there for a while, but I will sum it up by saying that after caring for mom and dad for 2-1/2 years, I finally had to put them in a nursing home. Mom passed away 8 days later. Dad lived for a year. My daughter finished school, got a job and she and the baby moved a couple hours away. My husband fought his cancer for 2 years and died on Valentine’s Day 2014.  But 2 months before, on Christmas Day, he gave me a Nikon D5100 camera. 

I didn’t take the camera out of the box right away. My husband was so sick it really took all of my concentration. After my husband passed away, my oldest daughter stayed with me for a month and a friend from Wisconsin stayed for a week. They were all leaving near the end of March, so when a college roommate of mine in Arizona invited me to visit, I said yes.

March 19, 2014 – I took my Nikon camera out of its box, packed my car and headed to Arizona.  It was the beginning of a cathartic process. I turned the radio up and rolled down my windows.  As I grieved for my husband, I began to realize that I wasn’t confined to the house anymore.  The more I grieved, the more pictures I took.  I snapped pictures almost uncontrollably as I wept for my mom and dad, missed my daughters and grandbaby, and grieved for the life I wouldn’t have with my husband.  It was then that I finally realized that my life-long dream could come true if I would let it.

Since then, I have been traveling the United States with my camera in my hand. Now that I am doing exactly what I felt compelled to do all my life, I understand completely what it means to have a passion for something.  The secret is . . . it makes me feel alive.