Before They Go: The Photograph You Don’t Know You’ll Treasure Yet

At ten years old, I understood exactly two things: I was going to miss my big sister, and I was finally getting the bigger bedroom.

The summer of 1989 was a long stretch of unscheduled days inside our un-air-conditioned house. Mom and Dad went to work. My older siblings had jobs. Left to my own devices, I got very good at making friendship bracelets, digging through the sofa cushions for enough change to buy a soda, writing my own Mad Libs, and sleeping until someone finally told me to get up.

Then, one August morning, I dragged myself out of bed at 6 a.m. and walked out to the driveway to watch my parents pack our car with my oldest sister Jenny's belongings before driving her to college. There were suitcases. Pillows. A lamp. A fan. Boxes whose contents I couldn't begin to guess. Apparently, a Dodge Caravan could hold an entire freshman year.

My mom called my brothers and me over. "Come here, I want a picture." None of us argued. I remember hugging Jenny around the waist because that's as high as I could reach.

I didn't know it then, but my mom had just taken the last photograph of all four of her kids living under the same roof.

My brothers and I stood in the driveway and waved until that Dodge Caravan turned the corner.

I used to dismiss that photograph whenever I saw it on display at my parents' house. My eyes were puffy, my short curls were combed straight into an embarrassing faux pony tail. And my sister's smile says she's excited to leave us behind.

But today, I no longer notice any of that. When I look at this image I notice four kids who had no idea that this was the end of a chapter.

It took a few decades-- and having kids of my own-- to realize that photographs like these become the bookmarks in our family stories. The week I brought my newborn son home from the hospital, my neighbors across the street were decorating their yard for their son's high school graduation.

I remember standing in my own driveway holding this impossibly tiny person and wondering how anyone could blink long enough for eighteen years to pass. Now he’s learning to drive and we’re talking about college visits.

Every family has one of these photos. Maybe your family's photograph hasn't been taken yet.

Maybe it's still waiting.

Maybe it's the last summer before your oldest leaves for college. Maybe it's the moving truck pulling away from the only house your children have ever called home. Maybe it's Thanksgiving, when everyone is back under one roof for what feels like the first time in months. The moments are different for every family, but they all have one thing in common: they don't announce themselves as life-changing while you're living them.

That's what I've been thinking about as I've created my Before They Go sessions.

They're not really about college.

They're not even really about saying goodbye.

They're about paying attention to the moments that quietly become the bookmarks in a family's story. The front steps where muddy cleats and backpacks have piled up for years. The kitchen where everyone somehow ends up at the end of the day. The bedroom that's about to feel strangely empty. The family dog weaving between suitcases, blissfully unaware that anything is changing.

I'm not interested in manufacturing emotion or asking everyone to look at the camera and smile on command. Those photographs have their place. What I'm after is something a little different: the feeling of home before the page turns.

Time flies. We all know that.

What surprises me is how often we don't recognize the moments we'll someday want to remember until they're already behind us.

If your family is standing on the edge of one of those moments—whether you're celebrating senior year, packing for college, or preparing to say goodbye to a home that has held so much of your life—I would be honored to help you preserve it.

Not because it's the end of the story.

Because it's a page you'll want to come back to.