Grandparents’ Love
December 24, 1978. Christmas Eve. A happy time, right? When the phone rang, it must have been a call to offer “good tidings of great joy”, except it wasn’t. Now, as a parent myself, I cannot imagine the two of them getting the news from their son that they would never be able to hold their daughter again. But that wasn’t all…
Foster home. Orphanage. These could have been my fate, but they weren’t. My Granny and Granddaddy also realized, as Christmas morning dawned with joyous expectation for other families, that they would be fulfilling THE promise they hoped they would never have to confront…“If anything happens to me, please say you will raise Lisa”. They never hesitated. They never said, “Can’t someone else do it?” or “We are too old for this”. They gave up everything – for me, a seven-year-old child. What an amazing sacrifice. I cannot even imagine how difficult all of this was for them, but this was – Grandparents’ Love.
There is such a special love in the bond between grandparents and their grandchildren. I have known this love first-hand. So, when I was asked to photograph a very special little man’s first birthday party and to capture memories with his grandparents as well, I was very honored and, if I am completely honest, more than a little nervous, because we were shooting in harsh sunlight. I love this family. I wanted everything to be beautifully captured so that Asher would look back on the photographs and see the joy in their faces coming from their special love for him.
These photographs are some of my favorites. I remember how he looked at each one of them, smiling and giggling with delight. I love to see them holding him so proudly, like there is nothing else in the world as precious. Their expressions capture the love and the joy that was cultivated in that first year and will grow throughout their lives together. I am so thankful for the opportunity to be a part of this special time for their family.
“The history of our grandparents is remembered not with rose petals but in the laughter and tears of their children and their children’s children. It is into us that the lives of grandparents have gone. It is in us that their history becomes a future.” – Charles and Ann Morse
Blessings ~
Lisa