I’m in a total dilemma.

It’s actually embarrassing to talk about it…I’m so embarrassed, but I need to get this off my chest…it’s really bothering me…

The night my father passed…I was with him…

I sat with him for about 30 minutes after he had passed, because I honestly thought he might have been sleeping…

That’s ok…that’s normal. My brain wasn’t ready to make the transition, to accept the reality of everything that had happened. That’s understandable, I’m his daughter. I wasn’t ready to let go.

This is all fine.

What is not okay, is that after my father had passed,

(I can’t believe I’m going to admit this aloud to myself),

I took some pictures of my father, sitting in his chair.

Taking pictures is what I do–I’ve been doing it since before I can remember, it’s my solace, it’s my way of capturing life around me, of coping, of reflecting, of dealing with life around me

The problem is now,

is that my father looks very, VERY, dead in those pictures.

So dead, it makes me gasp.

How did I not see that instantly???

And they haunt me.

I can’t delete them, because it feels sacrilegious.

So instead I choose to forget I took them.

Then tonight, I was looking through my photos for something else, and

SLAM

Those pictures were there.

I have to get them off of my phone. It feels wrong. It feels like a violation.

I understand why I did it, I didn’t mean to do anything, it was a coping moment, like a baby grabbing a binky,

a last goodbye,

but Jesus Christ they are the scariest pictures I have ever taken in my life.

(At least, to me).

Now, I’m going back into ‘tara, forget you took them’ mode, even as I write this,

but I know I have to get them off of my phone.

Maybe I should download them, onto a drive or something, then delete them off of my phone?

No…because that would mean they are somewhere out there, waiting for me like a time bomb to accidentally stumble upon them again.

I just have to delete them. Set them free. Set myself free.

That would mean scrolling through my phone again.

I might just retire this phone completely and put it away. Get a new phone.

Save money and get a new phone.

That’s what I’m going to do.