Trusting Joy

Trusting Joy was easy in this photograph, right? They say a photo holds 1,000 words. I don’t know the amount of words behind this story, but Trusting Joy came in ways I was not anticipating.

I knew I wanted our family to be part of the Home is Where the Heart Is photography project, by Nicholette Photography. I believe in the power of family and creating a home that feels ‘safe’ – where we can learn from mistakes, grow together, and most importantly trust the joy of living an imperfectly human experience together. Capturing moments doing what we love at home in photography is beautiful art. And it may sound funny, but as this is our fourth home in six years (in three different states), I wanted to capture memories of the house, as change can happen much quicker than any of us expect.

The initial chaos began as I realized getting this whole crew together was a lot more complicated than expected. And to clarify, the complications were completely on our end – I think we had to reschedule three different times.

Then the chaos for me was the process of overthinking clothes. Seriously. Either the colors I’ve chosen are no longer available or I’ve chosen are the same colors and sizes as the rest of the world. How does that happen? I’m clueless. And I overthink actually buying clothing for ‘photos.’ It needs to be practical enough to be worn oodles or I bag the idea and start pulling things from closets (trying to dodge the ones with stains/holes).

But the real part of this story is in what happened just hours before. I had received news that my daughters’ first grade teacher (she has just wrapped up the school year with her) tragically passed away in an accident. It was heart wrenching, traumatic and such a sudden shock. She was almost my same age, and the loss hit so close to home in so many ways. I really wanted to dig my heels into the ground, freeze time, sit in a corner and cry for her and her family. And I was praying for the right words to share the news with my daughter. This amazing woman had been a huge influence in her life – and one of the first ‘external’ adults she’d spent a considerable amount of time with. My daughter loved her dearly, and often told me she wanted to grow up to be a teacher too.

I was so close to canceling the photos. How could I focus on pictures, when something so tragic has happened? In a bit of a daze and simply going through the motions, I had barely fed the kids before we heard a knock on our door.

I took some deep breaths and reminded myself I wanted things to be real. As we started sharing things we really love to do together as a family, and as I slowed down enough to really look at my beautiful, excited and happy children, I realized something:

This is what matters. Connecting as a family is something we will cherish and hold onto. While my heart aches, I can trust the simple joy of connecting, hugging, tickling and laughing together. I can trust the joy of what matters most is in front of me.

I held onto those thoughts, as I held onto my family, and felt and trusted the deep joy from within.

I’m so grateful we didn’t cancel. These family photos remind me to my core of what family truly means to me. Trusting in the joy of that experience was an answer to my prayers, and put me in a place where I could have an open conversation with our daughter about death, and answer her questions about where we came from and where we go after we die.

While we can’t predict what the future holds, we can trust the joy of the present.