A favorite picture

The first time I saw one of my favorite pictures of James and I was after his funeral. And technically, it isn't even a picture of us-we are in the background. Although thanks to Photoshop, I have cropped out the person the picture is of, and made us bigger and blurrier. Photoshop is apparently not idiot-proof, sadly for me.

After James' funeral, our friend gave me copies of the pictures that were taken one summer day in 2006 when a group of us went to Wild Waves, a water and theme park up near Seattle. For the longest time, these were the only photos I could look at-this group of photos he never got to see. One in particular caught my eye because of what we are doing:

I am one seriously white white girl. I wear a watch at all times as my tan line is the only way I can prove I really do have some color. My tan is most people's white. James was naturally darker than I and whenever he would get some color, I would hold up my arm next to his and say "you're getting there. You're almost as dark as me." It became one of our running jokes, and I never tired of it, though I suspect he may have. I don't spend much time in the sun so there was no chance I was ever going to get as dark as him, although one time, my arms did get as dark as the inside of his upper leg which I was thrilled about.

I cherish this picture that we weren't even the focal point of more than some which were deliberately taken of us. To others, we are doing a simple silly thing in the background, but when I look at it, I see James and I being "us."