A Never Ending Love...

When our children are little we often say... I'll love you no matter what. That is the love of a parent. A parent loves a bad child even as they punish them. They also love the child when they grow up into adults and become parents themselves.




This love often comes with a sense of responsibility or worry on part of the parent... what children (even adult ones) often forget or fail to realize is that a parents duty or sense of duty doesn't stop at a certain age or point in time... it is never ending just as their love is.



So when a teenager is late, or an adult is having problems at work or in a relationship or even with their own children... the parent is still concerned. When their child hurts, they hurt.



It took me becoming a parent to understand this, and yes I have often worried about my adult children... whether it is over little things or life changing ones.



Our extended family just went through a troubling situation and my mother in law has been upset by it... her child has been hurt and their life is changing in many ways... so she feels unable to do anything but wanting to protect her own.



Life will go on and time will heal, but what a wonderful thing to have a parents love to come home to; their arms to fall into; or just the knowledge that they are but a mere phone call away.

A Mourning in Fairfax

I’m not sure this firefighter would call his self a hero but his attempt and that of the members of his crew were heroic… they responded to the call and gave it their all but were unable to save the woman who lived in this house… it has been 14 years since I shot this photo while working for our local paper and its image has never left my mind.



Every once in a while I pull it out and remember the choice I made that day… I was in route to an interview for a feature on a local antique shop when I decided to follow the fire trucks and see what was going on. Being a former volunteer firefighter I stayed out of the way but found myself stepping over hoses as I shot roll after roll of film, never really seeing what I was shooting, it was like I was on automatic. It was only after the fire was out that I discovered that the woman who lived there had not made it out and perished in the fire.


Although it was hard for me and I am sure her family, the paper ran this photo along with others on the front page that week; and while I have taken thousands of other photos, none has ever touched me the way this one did… every time I look at it I am drawn to the beams of light pouring through the burning building shining down on the firefighter or perhaps the victim or both.