I have been considering volunteering with NILMDTS for a while now, but in truth I’ve been afraid that I would be unable to handle the emotion of those moments.  This was my thought again while watching the final slideshow of the evening at Sandy’s talk, and afterwards she stood up and said, “Everyone always says the same thing to me, I don’t know if I could handle it.  I would cry.”  She then said there hasn’t been one NILMDTS session she’s been to where her eyes weren’t filled with tears  – but here’s the thing:  no one expects you to be in that room and *not* feel the pain and the sadness of that moment.  Of course you will, we’re only human.  It was what I needed to hear, I guess.

I took the opportunity the following day to tag along with a volunteer in our area as she went to photograph a gravely-ill baby boy who had just undergone a heart transplant.  A heart transplant!  This tiny little body was surrounded by tubes and wires and machines everywhere, and I helped by pulling up a stool so we could get an image of the mom giving him a kiss on his forehead, and holding wires away from his hand so we could get an image of his big sister holding it.  I watched his chest rise and fall, and saw his mom wrap her arms around her older two children while she stared at the numbers on the machines above his bed, and I was only able to hang on to my emotions by focusing on the photographic aspects of what we were doing.  Only barely.

I spent the rest of that day heavy with the sadness that he may never leave that hospital room and the gratefulness of knowing my own children were living, breathing, laughing, playing… alive.  It was then that I realized no matter how difficult it might be to photograph a sick baby or one already lost, it could never begin to touch what these families are suffering through.  I know these images cannot begin to replace what they have lost, but it is clear to me now more than ever how powerful a gift a photograph can be – with it we can celebrate the love and life we have for our friends and family, even the ones we are only blessed with knowing for a short time.  And sometimes these images allow us to remember that person as they are in our hearts, without the coldness of machines and wires, and that can give a sense of peace that allows us to keep breathing without them.

(If you’d like more information about the Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep organization, please visit their website at www.NILMDTS.org.)