Amy Murgatroyd Photography Strikes Again

Amy has been a dear friend for many years now and it has been such a joy to watch her interest in photograph grow into a passion and a profession.  We are always grateful benefactors of her talent and are honored to be on the receiving side of her lens.  

Last year Amy took regular, beautiful family pictures at the beach.  Little did we realize the weight those pictures would carry in the coming weeks and months.  As we met people in our new medical community, and they wanted to understand who Jonah was before diagnosis, we always turned to Amy's pictures - which had captured his joyful mischievous spirit.  When we felt like we'd been fighting for so long - and we wanted Jonah to remember what he was fighting for - we printed a family picture and brought it from hospital room to hospital room.  The picture served as an anchor to us, and our medical team, of why we were fighting so hard.  The pictures bore the weight of the possibility of being the last of their kind.  Who knew how important those pictures would be?

It was with overflowing hearts that we went back to Avalon this year, and in that same awed spirit of thankfulness, received Amy's talents again.  The thing is - this is real life - the night of the photo session we were swarmed with small biting bugs that apparently are very attracted to hair product.  The kids looked like they had thrown dirt in their hair - but it was just the bugs.  Prior to the photo session the kids were already a little cranky, so the bugs did not help at all.  I feel a low panic that all the pictures would be of us making ugly faces and scratching our heads with the kids bickering in the background.  And then we stepped away from the dunes, away from the bugs and we found a rhythm, but I wondered if it was too late.  In true fashion to the way God has created the world however; beauty is always there if you take the time to see.

Our deep prayer is that these pictures do not have to carry such a heavy burden.  That these pictures can reflect joy, happiness, gratitude and love - and that that will be all these pictures have to stand for.