Nermal's Pet Memorial Portraits + The Importance of Updating Your Family Portraits

Take your family photos often.

I realized on Sunday that we didn’t have a family photo with all our cats. Well, we didn't have a portrait that wasn't around a seasonal celebration where one of the cats wearing bat wings or a banana costume. So, we set up a timer to take a portrait of us all together. I encourage you to wrangle up your family and take the photos, let the photos be candid and imperfect and enjoy the moments. If you can, hire an Ottawa photographer to take them to take the stress off of the set-up. We snapped ours out of last minute urgency for an end of life pet memorial for our beloved Nermal, they are perfectly imperfect. Now, I am now thinking ahead to updating our family portraits more routinely that include our pets and wanted to share this to express the importance of updating your photos too.

I am thankful that I have this family portrait, he was so sick at this point though, I still cherish that I took them. No words for the void that I feel. I miss so much about Nermal that was ingrained in tiny fleeting moments of our daily lives. He was always wherever we were and was curious and wanted to be invoved. He was such a character of a cat with a big personality that makes missing him feel so heavy.

Matthew asked what I wanted for our 4th anniversary/my birthday, I jokingly sent him a photo of a ring and of 3 kittens from a local pet store. After a hilarious misunderstanding that I had in fact sent him a photo of an engagement ring not just jewelry, Matt brought me to the pet store. He asked the owner if I could hold the grey kitten. I immediately fell in love, and Matt said “We’ll take him!”

We renamed him Nermal for his perma-sad-looking eyes but he was anything but sad, he was so vibrant and radiating with joy. He eagerly greeted guests and loved Tiffany’s friends and it was really heartwarming yesterday to have our friends send us DMs of photos of them with Nermal.

12 years wasn’t enough time with you, but it was an amazing 12 years. I love you to the moon and back Nermal.

To note: my husband and daughter don't like their portraits posted publicly, I still wanted to share about the importance of family photography with your pets, the cover is a portrait of Nermal I took when we brought him home, and I included a portrait that my daughter took of Nermal and I the day before he passed.