Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep

 

I  am a volunteer professional photographer for Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep (NILMDTS).  This organization provides bereavement photography to families show have lost or who will shortly be losing a child or infant.  It is a difficult job that not many can do, but so very rewarding.  My heart goes out to all those families with whom I’ve worked, and all the others who have received the NILMDTS services.  This organization runs on donations of time, money, and services. 

If you have Facebook, please take a moment and Fan & Vote for NILMDTS.  Chase Community Giving is giving away $5,000,000 to charities around the U.S.A.  They are using FaceBook voters to decide what charities will receive the money, so please go vote!!

Or if you feel led, click the banner below to donate to NILMDTS. Thanks!

Have I loved you enough?

I got another call tonight.

The ones where the couple on the other end have lost a baby.

They need pictures, one last set of pictures.

Have I loved my kids enough today?

Will I remember the way they looked,

the way they smell,

the way they breathed when they thought I wasn’t watching?

Will they know I love them?

With all my heart, loved them.

Will I know I showed them?

Will I regret not doing more?

I’ll keep trying.

I promise not to regret

letting them go to sleep,

not being absolutely sure they know

I loved them.

No matter what.

Held

I held a child today

he was not mine.

Sadly he was not theirs either,

he was His.

Seated beside his Father

before he ever drew a breath

on this earth.

His hand barely covered my finger

and I gently guided his arm through

an outfit that never should have fit a baby,

but it did.

I laid him carefully on a blanket

in a small bed

as if he were sleeping.

I imagined one year ago

that the child I carried in my own body

would already have been bigger than this.

How was it that I was allowed to keep my baby

when they were not?

What was different between me

and them?

Why would they suffer this heartbreak when I

would go home in a few hours and celebrate

a first birthday?

I took pictures

of the feet, the fingers, the ears, the length.

All the things I treasured on my own

living, breathing child.

I brought the bed and the child to his mother

who looked up at me with pleading eyes

and who said “Thank You” to me

even though I wouldn’t have been able

to speak at all.

She found her voice, and used it to say

thank you. To me. Handing her that box.

The father stood beside the bed,

his arms around her shoulders as they shook.

The Father stood beside the bed,

Holding them.