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ARTICLES
Rituals
Photography > Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep
On February 10th, 2005 my husband and I made the heartbreaking decision to remove our fourth child from life support. Maddux was six days old. That day we called a professional photographer to come in and take images of us with our son. We knew that we wanted his images displayed proudly in our home, right along with our older children. I didn't know then, that having his beautiful images would help my family in our journey from heartache to healing. On April 8th, 2005, I had the privilege of participating in the creation of a wonderful 501(c) (3) nonprofit organization called Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep. During the last year we have had over 500 professional photographers nationwide, sign up to help in this important work. We provide a photographic session and images on a disk to parents who have or will suffer the loss of their infant. This work is so important because unlike other terminal conditions that affect children, when a parent loses an infant at birth they have only hours to create any memories of that child. Often they are in such a state of shock that they do not even consider taking a photograph. We know from hundreds of e-mail from parents all over the world that having any photo is such a treasure. NILMDTS provides professional images that are truly a keepsake. This gift provides images that will help the family through the grieving process and let them begin to heal. Photographers from around the country and outside the United States have committed to provide a session and all of the images to the bereaved family at no charge. This is such a fantastic gift. Each photographer not only donates their time to go to the hospital to complete this emotional session, in addition they convert the image to B&W, do all of the art work on the files and burn them to a disk before they present them to the family. After Maddux died, I never thought my life would be able to go on. Having his images have helped me begin to heal. I will grieve every day over the death of Maddux. My life will never be the same, nor should it be. NILMDTS has changed the way many parents and families are able to heal. With warm regards,
I would also like to invite
you to visit our forum for parents. It is located at www.nowisleep.org. This
is an area for parents to talk about their babies, and seek information and
support. We also have an area for affiliated photographers to seek training. |
