I Am Crying My Eyes Out

I felt this urge to go into my coat closet and pull out this scrapbook of my mom's that I haven't looked at in YEARS..... And I mean years and years... Last time I looked at it, I wasn't a scrapbooker and I guess I didn't really mind that it was MOLDY and falling apart and had water damage. And this time, I looked at it and I just started shaking and sobbing and bawling because I saw how much work it is going to take to restore it. But what kills me is that so much of it is irreplaceable and priceless. My mother was an artist and it is full of her little doodles and artwork, drawn directly on the crumbling pages. She also wrote directly on the pages, and some of her journaling is so water-damaged it is illegible. There is so much mold on some of the pages that it has blackened out whatever writing was underneath. Of course, some of my tears are falling because of my grief over losing my mom in general. It's been 25 years and I'm still not over it.

This is also agonizing for me because the theme of this scrapbook is my mom and dad's courtship and their engagment, wedding planning, and the early days of their marriage. It is full of their love letters and photos of little day trips they took together.

Well, I don't know where to even begin restoring this. If anyone has any suggestions, please help me!