real life

'This blurry photo is the only one I have of the five of us. I thought we had time.'

It’s been almost two years since Cath Hughes lost her husband, Brett, just six weeks after he was diagnosed with oesophageal cancer.

The Victorian couple had three children and were told they would have at least a year together but early in 2015 Brett died, aged 35.

On the same day, the family was booked in to have a professional photo taken. Of course, they didn’t make it.

There is only one photo of the whole Hughes family together and it’s so blurry they’re “practically unrecognisable”.

Friends, I need to rant about photos. This is the only photo we have of the five of us. Literally the only one. And it's…

Posted by Words in Wonderland on Friday, 24 February 2017

“This is the only photo we have of the five of us. Literally the only one. And it’s so out of focus that we’re practically unrecognisable,” Cath wrote when she shared the snap on her blog Words in Wonderland.

“We had been meaning to organise family photos for a few months but kept putting it off because we thought we had time. We didn’t have time. He got sick.”

The photo was taken on an iPhone on the second birthday of their youngest daughter.

ADVERTISEMENT

When her husband became ill, Cath was working full-time as CEO of a tourism organisation but she stopped to care for her partner of a decade and their three children Lacey, aged seven, Finn, aged five, and Willow, now four.

Kath with Lacey, Finn and Willow. Source: Facebook

The mother-of-three says she regrets the trivial worries which kept her from taking photos or thinking she "didn't have time" for them.

"[You] do, you have time," she wrote.

"You're not too fat. Your wardrobe is lovely. Your hair is perfect just how it is. You're actually not too busy. You don't need to wait until your middle child's toothless smile is corrected by time, or your youngest self-cut fringe has grown out, or your oldest is out of that cast. Now is the perfect time to have photos taken. Now, before it changes. Right now. You are all perfect as you are.

"I have sobbed over this one photo, and the lack of better versions of it to adore. I thought we had time. Learn from me and have the bloody photos taken, there is nothing you will regret.

"I thought we had time," she ended the post.

Listen: Andrew Denton talks about life and death on No Filter with Mia Freedman...