Wings

And here she is.  Wings outstretched, open to what is, voluminously open to what will someday be.
Confident, alive, beautiful, undisguised, sincere, witty, effervescent.  Life personified.


I caught her playing with the wispy wings on her Homecoming dress and for me, that was better than any possible posed moment of perfection that I could possibly have captured.  I am good at waiting.(with four children, I have to be)  And snapping the shutter, click.  Click, click.  Click!  I take in the moments, but without the camera, the moments become lost in a menagerie of hours, days and then years blending together to create a montage of moments lost.  Colors blended.  So I do the best that I can to bring them into focus and then collect them in a more lasting place.  

This way I will never forget.  And neither will they.

Because truly, this is what is real.  The posed photos are nice to have, but to me, they often come up short.  A little blank.  Well, posed.  There is more, so much more.  There is an entire history to be pieced together and how will they ever remember if the moments become lost in a vague set of arranged smiles.  Admittedly, the candid pictures are more difficult to capture.  Sometimes they come out with eyes closed or mouths grimaced or faces scrunched in unnatural looking contortions but if you wait, and take so many pictures that your children finally laugh about how many times you release the shutter on your camera, you will eventually capture the truth of the moment.

Angel Daughter Number Four is a very good sport.  I suppose that being the fourth child in a fairly large family teaches you to develop patience and endurance and so, she has.  She is even-tempered, kind-hearted and well-loved by many.  In this photo, she was waiting for her friend to get off the phone so that they could go get something to eat before the dance.

Then she looked up at her dad.  So much love flows between the two of them.  It is one of the sweetest things that I have ever witnessed.

And then she turned her gaze back up at me.  And the sunlight caught in her eyes.  And my mother's heart skipped a beat.  And I told her not to move while I lifted my camera to capture a single moment in time.  Click.  Click, click.  Click, click.  A split-second of connection forever secured in my soul and now, forever imprinted immortally for us to always remember.  


Dance your heart out tonight, AD4.  I love you, my child.