I don’t know what is is, but seeing this, and reading the description.  
Just brings a tear to mah eye.

@Fair Use (Optimisitc Neighsayer)  
It’s really beautiful ^_
 
This is just a suggestion, but if you still have access to it, you might get a ‘cleaner’ scan of it if you put a solid black sheet of paper or cloth behind it on the scanner. It looks like whatever you ‘took the picture with’ passed ‘through’ the fabric and saw what was behind it. So, if you can put a black surface behind it, that ‘passing through’ light might get caught and not cause reflections. The overall image might be darker, but you can lighten it up using an editor.
 
OH! Oh oh oh - wait … I just realized that’s your reflection from taking the photograph ^_^
 
Ok, disregard everything I just said - this way ‘a piece of you’ is in the image, too, and that’s nice ^_^

@Ciaran  
It was. She worked on it for several months.

That’s lovely, it looks like it was a lot of work!