Disclaimer: I don't own Passions or any of the characters you recognize.
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"Open the present from me first, please mama." Miguel looked lovingly at his mother as he handed her the hand-wrapped gift.
The family watched intently as Pilar carefully pulled the tape off of the paper and slid the package out from its covering. "Miguel, it's beautiful," she exclaimed showing her children the ornately decorated picture frame.
"Open mine next!"
The laughter and joy of the last birthday she spent with her family faded from her memory. She cautiously placed the frame back on the mantle and looked at the photograph her mother had put in it. It was a picture of the entire family, taken a week before her father disappeared. "We were all so happy then," she sighed to herself. Theresa walked over to the coffee table and picked up the photo album she was looking at earlier. She flipped through the pages and noticed how the family had become smaller through the years. When her father left, Paloma was sent away. Theresa continued to flip through the album and cried as her family always seemed to be happy, despite the hardships they had experienced. Her family grew even smaller as the photos revealed Antonio's absence from her life. There were so many years that it was just Miguel, Luis, Mama and herself. She had become obsessed with Ethan in those years. She continued to leaf through the photo album and cried as she reached a picture of her wedding day to Ethan. "That was the beginning of the end for me," she cried. Family members dwindled once more as Sheridan was taken away from Luis. She continued her trek down memory lane and smiled as her family began to grow. Antonio came home and brought Sheridan with him. That day was happy and sad at the same time. She sighed as she witnessed her family continue to increase as both Luis and Miguel became fathers. Her tears flowed from her eyes as the next photographs revealed her absence. She traced her fingers over Miguel and his daughter and sobbed as the next pages showed a much more somber brother, devastated by the loss of his child. Unable to look at pictures of things that cannot be undone, Theresa shut the photo album and walked upstairs to go to bed.