The Beauty of Photography

                I love Photography.  There is something raw about finding that perfect angle with that single expression.  You’ll miss a thousand perfect expressions with your camera but if you are fast enough it’s like capturing a soul.  Since the dawn of photography people believed our spirits are in our photographs. 

It’s how we preserve a moment in time when we don’t want to forget milestones.  Cameras are our medium.  They are there for every graduation, wedding, even crime scenes so we don’t lose that proof these things happened.  Every person leaves their mark.

The Victorians got it right.  You went to a photographer so you could remember.  If a child died everyone would pose around them and the photographer would make memories.  That was the only photo most families had.  When people lived too far away to come to the funeral the family sent them this picture.  People hung these in their homes.  It wasn’t morbid or sad.  It was a family cherishing a beloved child in the best way they could.  The world has never forgotten.

After the 1930’s we’ve moved away from home viewings and family cemeteries’.  But parents have started bringing these traditions back.  As our ancestors we take photographs to memorialize our children.  There is a whole non-profit out there, Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep , to take photos of stillborn, miscarried and children who die young.  It’s not morbid or sad.  I have a beautiful Hallmark frame holding a NILMDTS photo on my wall.

Some people look at this as a shrine.  If that is the case then you should never display your dearly departed’s things.  Some people may think it's right to forget.  I am not one of those people.  All of those items bring back memories.  I don’t worship them.  I hardly even notice them anymore.  Sometimes I look at them and I remember I am a Mom.  I do have kids.  Someday I hope to meet them. 

I forget how unsettling this is to other people.  I don’t invite people to my house.  Even if I had a big house I’d have to be careful who came over.  I forget what it’s like on the other side.  In High School Mom’s friend had a baby die.  She hung a portrait of her stillborn daughter in the hall by the front door, in a place of honor.  People thought she was sleeping unless they knew what happened.  I was ashamed to be terrified of walking into that house.  I am afraid of death so seeing an image of a family with their sick or dead baby is terrifying.  That doesn’t make it ugly.  It’s beautiful.  Now that I have my own memorial I can see the difference because I have that love.  How can something be scary where there is so much love?

That is what you can imagine when you see these memorials.  It’s uncomfortable for you because it stands for the death of a child.  That family gets to live with the impact their son or daughter had on them.  It’s a privilege.