The prior night, I’d worked until 3 A.M. in an attempt to salvage the photos of Jasper’s disastrous birthday party. In several shots, he had been yelling, his mouth wide open. It hadn’t been difficult to combine the images of his small white teeth with separate images of his mouth. My Content-Aware Move Tool was useful in shifting the shape of the mouth and turning the corners up into a cheerful grin. Then I pulled the corners of his eyes and cheeks up to make crinkly laughing eyes and a variety of heartwarming smiles. I wanted at least one picture of Jasper and his father embracing, but unfortunately, I hadn’t witnessed a lot of affection. So I used Puppet Warp to move their limbs into the correct position. One shot with both of Jasper’s arms around his father’s neck. Another one with Jasper leaning his head on his father’s shoulder. And finally one with me and Jasper, my hand on his face.

Later on, just for my enjoyment, I’d layered my own image onto a photo of Robert, and adjusted my head so it appeared that I was sitting next to him and leaning my head onto his shoulder. The photo of me and Jasper unwrapping the present had posed an even greater challenge, but it actually came out quite well. I’d successfully fabricated an expression of hopeful anticipation on his face.

Before closing the folders from the night before, I set to work on one more version of Jasper—placing him at the beach in California. I felt the need to give his life more dimension. I printed an 8 x 10 of Jasper surfing, and hung the photo in my living room alcove. It was exquisite. It’s amazing what you can do with visualization. All you need to do is create memories. Memories are images that we play in our minds. If I purposefully played certain images in my mind, they would become memories. In fact, if I played them often enough, they might become stronger and more vivid than “real” memories.

I only edit photos when absolutely necessary. People remember events selectively. It’s a matter of self-preservation, and I don’t see anything wrong with it. Who’s to say that the memory I create is any less “true” than the original one?