Consider this a reminder to print your pictures. Yes it is nice to view them online or on your phone but there is a certain joy you cannot get digitally like you can with a tangible image.

This is the very last picture of my dad. It is not the type of picture I want to display in a frame and it is not the way I want to remember him. I want to remember him as the witty, handsome, adventurous man that I grew up with. He was my hero. He is my hero! I have cried more than I haven't in the last year. My siblings and I, ruled by stubbornness and just being New Yorkers, weren't speaking, which made going through all of this with my dad a million times harder. Losing our father forced us together, but going through pictures brought us together.

There are several professional pictures that were great to look back on.

Like my mom and dad at prom!

But the ones that truly had us huddled and gathered around the table, telling stories and laughing were the snap shots. The ones with all the bad hair, the funny faces, the horrible clothes.

Print those pictures!

I guarantee those are the pictures you are going to cherish when you lose a loved one, and I hate to break it to you, but you are going to lose loved ones.

My first marriage may have ended but I will always cherish dancing with my dad.

The basement holiday dinners at my grandparents house. Look at how damn good my dad looks! Three people are already gone in this photo but this serves and a tangible memory of the best times we had together. The fruit cups we always had before dinner. The centerpieces, my brother shoveling food in his mouth and my grandpa, always at the center.

This blurry picture is one of my favorites. My dad loved being a cop in New York City.

The stories he would tell. I have his scrapbook that he kept from his time at the 20th and the 34th precincts.

Proof that my mom and dad once were very much in love.

Even if parents divorce, us kids want to remember these times.

My dad was hot! Is that weird to say? I don't care. He had ice blue eyes.

The pictures mean more to me than anything money could buy.

One thing is for sure, my kids will not want for pictures. New and old, printed and digital.

Pictures are precious.