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Healing.

Friday, December 6, 2019

Bert turned four  months old Wednesday. As I mentioned the other day, where does the time go? In that same post, I published some photographs my good friend Maggie was kind enough to take of our family when we were in West Virginia for Thanksgiving.

This marks the third set of photographs Maggie has taken for us. She took our engagement photos in 2017, our wedding photos in 2018, and now our family photos in 2019. All three sets of these photos are beautiful, make me happy when I see them, and are blessings to us. However, the most recent set of family photos has one adjective associated with them that the other two don't have: they are healing.

If you read my post about the birth of Bert and my expectations of it versus the reality of the situation (found here), you might remember that the one thing that truly pushed me over the edge was that we didn't get any photos of Bert in the hospital. As I wrote:

"But on Tuesday afternoon, two days after Bert's birth, I was standing by his bassinet in our room looking at him as he was lying in between the jaundice lights with his sunglasses on. I believe we had just found out he failed another hearing test. Suddenly, the photographer popped in and said she heard we were checking out that day and did we want to schedule photos for Bert? I just looked at him, then looked at her and told her that our son had some health concerns and it just wouldn't be possible for him to do it. So she said she'd just cross us off her list and get to the other babies who were also scheduled to be discharged that day.

The normal babies, you know." 

One thing that I want to add to what I wrote at the time, now that some months have passed, is that the photographer's response to me was part of what hurt so badly. It just hit me one day a few weeks ago that that lady never told me she was sorry to hear that Bert wasn't well. She literally just acted like he was taking up time on her list and she was relieved to be able to cross him off so she could move on with her day. I'm sure she didn't mean to be hurtful, but, you know, it hurt.

As time as passed, the wound has gotten less painful. But there are still times that it pops up. Just the other day we received a lovely picture frame for Bert's baptism (thank you Daniel and Catherine!) and the stock photo in the frame showed a baby with angel wings lying peacefully with his eyes closed. Joe remarked that we could never get Bert to pose like that, and I agreed with him that right now our son could never do that, but I also gently reminded him that that picture was a newborn photo.

Along with Maggie's photos, we were blessed to have Joe's sister Caroline come and visit us. Although she is not a photographer by trade (she is a stylist and business owner in Nashville), you'd never know it by the beautiful photos she also took of Bert.

Because of Maggie and Carrie, something that really hurt my heart and weighed me down was healed. I can't put into words how grateful I am to both of them for their kindness and time.

Photo by Caroline -- September 2019 
Photo by Caroline -- September 2019

Photo by Caroline -- September 2019

Photo by Caroline -- September 2019

Photo by Caroline -- September 2019

Photo by Margaret Schaad Photography -- November 2019

Photo by Margaret Schaad Photography -- November 2019

Photo by Margaret Schaad Photography -- November 2019

Photo by Margaret Schaad Photography -- November 2019

Photo by Margaret Schaad Photography -- November 2019

Photo by Margaret Schaad Photography -- November 2019

Photo by Margaret Schaad Photography -- November 2019


2 comments:

  1. Beautiful words and pictures which speak volumes!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you so much, Ava. I really appreciate it!

      Delete

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