What a journey Rob and I have been on the past few days! Not just our little Oscar party where we and our three guests donned tuxes and/or fancy fake jewels as we sipped sparkling wine or water and watched all of our favourites take home the coveted Academy Award…but we’ve been seeing some “moving pictures” of our own.
 
You see, we got a little extension on the deadline for the second and final manuscript of my book. Our editor, who is Vice President, Publisher and Editor-in-Chief at HarperCollins (how lucky am I?) has been so gracious and patient. She’s guided this newbie along through the whole process over the past 15 months and we’re about to send off the final (we hope) edition of our life’s work. Then she and her team will work their magic for the next 11 months and lo, these 93,000+ words will be in a book. 
 
But should I add to the word count by 6,000 because of six pictures and that old saw about one being worth a thousand words? Hmmm. 
 
It’s been a tough haul in the past month since we began delving into which photos, but no more so than the last week when we’ve been trying to get permission from everyone: my niece’s wedding photographer (who took our favourite picture of Rob, Lauren and me), the Blue Jays’ head office (for a shot of us singing the anthems on the field together) and Today’s Parent magazine (for permission to use Rob’s favourite of Lauren and me, at a microphone, when she was a baby), to name three.
 
But the question is this: how do you sum up the life of someone who went from being your baby to the mother of her own cherished child? It’s been a difficult process in so very many ways, but one that we’re honoured to undertake. We just hope we choose ones that she would be happy with.
 
When Lauren died, Rob was able to access her computer files so that we could find pictures that she had taken, to use in her memorials. What I didn’t realize at that time was how many videos she had taken of her baby son. Most of them are a minute or so and feature her cooing at him, him smiling and laughing or snoring and breathing softly. Just baby things.
 
But hearing her voice and just how much she adored that beautiful little child has brought me to tears more than once. It’s surprising how little Rob and I have cried over the past few months, but I guess it’s no surprise that immersing ourselves in this process one more time has been a trigger for tears.
 
There have been surprises, too. The nicest was this photo of me goofing around on an antique microphone. I don’t remember when she took it (the date on the photo is eight years ago this month), but I love that she worked to put an effect on it. This is a new favourite, I think. What a lovely gift from a girl who just keeps giving!
 

 
And finally, a bit of travel business! The AMA Waterways Tulip Time trip that Mike Cooper and I are co-hosting next April (yes, 2019) is booking up with several double and single cabins already spoken for. If you’re curious, please join us for a webinar (it’s dead simple – Rob and I have logged on to two in the past few months with Rogers radio and Rotary International). If you have time, it’s at 4:30 pm EST tomorrow – Wednesday – so please join us!
 
All of the details are below and you can just click on the photo to be taken to the registration page. (You need to register ahead of time if you want to listen in.)