Dead Girl Pictures

Friends

As we climbed higher into the rocky hills the beauty of the landscape gets to me. I pull out my camera and ask my friends if they mind stopping for a minute.
No one minds.
They never do when you have a terminal disease.
This trip was my idea. I refused treatment for a cancer that was already over 60 percent of my body. I refused the "slight possibility" they might be able to do something. However it was a 100 percent possibility I would be so weak and out of sorts from the intense treatment that I would not know who was who.
No thanks.
If this is the end then I'm ready, but I'm doing it my way.
Thus the road trip out west with my best friends.
I love the west. It's always held a place in my heart. I have lived in Mississippi my whole life so maybe I liked the west for the striking difference there was between the two places. We were headed to Utah with all of its grand mountains and deep valleys, the place calls to my soul.
I was a photographer by trade and I wanted my last pictures of the places that set my soul on fire and the people I love.
So in the deep evening light my friend Jake pulled the Jeep over to a lookout point.
He and my friends Kate and Brian were all on this road trip with me. I was prepared to go alone if I needed to but I know their fear of something happening while I was gone was fierce.
"What's the worst that could happen?" I laughed at them before the trip.
"I could die? Get snatched by a killer? Ha!! Jokes on them! I'm already dead no matter what they do!"
I thought this was a great way to look at things. Kate cried. The guys just gave me long looks that said I was an idiot. So here we all are. The four of us crammed into a Jeep trekking our way out west from the south. My parents were all for the trip. At 38 I had moved back in with them after selling my place. It would be one less thing to handle for them after. One less bit of paperwork and I loved my parents. We got along as friends. More than just parent and child. They needed me there as much as I was to need them soon. However, this trip was my time.
I took some of the money from my house sale and bought the new Jeep. Jake didn't know it yet but this was my gift to him. He had always wanted one but never pulled the trigger to buy one. So I did it for him. It was "his" color and trim package. As for Kate and Brian I purchased her engagement ring. She had no idea that at some point on this trip Brian would propose. The ring she would wear had been picked out with care by both Brian and I. It was bigger than he could have purchased on his own right now and I wanted my friend to have her dream ring when she was married to her dream man. He would tell her about my hand in it all later.
For now I was just enjoying the sunlight playing over the valley below. It was breathtaking in its simplicity of a moment. I snapped picture after picture including some of my friends they didn't know I took. These would be for them after I was gone. My camera uploaded all my pictures to my laptop and phone when I was done. This make for easy editing and storage. As we get back on the road I flick through the pictures as my friends discuss where to stop for the night and what's for dinner. I did a quick edit on a few and uploaded them to Insta. My account had blown up when I had changed the description of it a few weeks ago.
Dead Girl Pictures was my new name on the app. I know, morbid for sure but accurate. The account served as a last place to post my work. My parents had access to it and had agreed to keep it active for a year after. Then shut it down for me. For now I was documenting our trip through my pictures.
Funny enough the app is how we came to find the house.