The Photographer

Today I bore witness to some dear friends' adoption of their second child. These friends are pretty fantastic people, and we've adored them for a long time. But as tends to happen in adult friendships, once we no longer played rugby together, we saw them with decreasing frequency. The adoration remained. Over the years, we've seen them infrequently but always were reminded at each reunion how much we cherish the relationship.

Now these friends have two kids, and we have two kids. Since becoming mothers, we've seen each other way more often and it's been amazing. To hold each other's babies and watch our children begin to develop their own friendships is nothing short of awesome.

And today, I was honored to photograph the adoption of that second cherished baby. I was privileged to photograph the first adoption, too, and after going through hundreds of photos of their friends and family all gathered together to celebrate this small, new family, I am struck.

I am struck by their village.

Everywhere I turned, there were outstretched hands. Little chubby beckoning fingers. Older, calloused fingers carefully guided the gripping fists of an almost-walker. Growing teenaged hands tossed babies and cuddled toddlers and pointed at words in a book.

All shapes and sizes and colors and ages were there to show their love and support for this growing family. If I didn't already know them, I wouldn't even be 100% sure which children belonged to whom, or who the grandparents or aunts or uncles or family friends were. That's the most beautiful part of all.

I can only hope to translate their love for one another through my lens. I hope to do them justice. I hope they can feel my love and admiration for them.