Color Your World

I signed up for this online photography class that is specifically for mother's who have lost a child. It officially starts in November but we were given an assignment in the meantime.

After the loss of a child, its easy to live in shades of grey.

The assignment is to give color some room in your life again. She asks us to pick one color, focus on it, take some photos and make a collage of what we came up with. I was torn on which color to choose for a while so i mulled it over.

I ended up choosing the color Orange. 

I was drawn to orange because it reminds me of both summer and fall. Truman was suppose to come Oct 12th which is a prime week for the leaves changing color, but he came in August instead. I love astrology, my son was a Leo, which is ruled by the sun and symbolized by a Lion, which are both orangey as well. 

I had envisioned Halloween's spent together and orange is a color associated with that holiday.

To me the color orange relates to Truman and my relationship as what could have and should have been. 

The California Poppy was an obvious orange choice for me. My son was "Mr. San Franciscan". He had the most beautiful view of the city from his incubator and i dreamed about the day i would bundle him up in his car seat and drive over the Golden Gate bridge (which is also orange) to take him home. Which is why i took a picture of the rusty metal. I can not take a photo of the Golden Gate bridge because of distance but I wanted to convey that sort of thought. Also the rust, reminded me of tears for some reason. 

The middle photo in the top row is of our raspberry patch. Every evening that Jeff comes home, our routine is to go out to the gardens to water and harvest. We have been harvesting raspberries since Truman died and making jam, rightfully called "Tru Jam," in our son's honor. When the setting sun rays pour through everything looks orange. 

The leaves, again, symbolize this time of year and how he should be with me.

I have an orange dog named Pilot, he loves children. It is quite possibly one of the sweetest things in the world to watch him interact with a baby. We were so looking forward to introducing Truman and Pilot. They seriously would have adored each other. The picture of Pilot peaking out from behind the barn doors symbolizes how we have been introspective lately. Hiding from life. They say "Life goes on." but it hasn't for us yet.

I chose the dead dandelion at dusk because of all the wishes I've made. All my wishes were for Truman.