Well, September 11th has come and gone once again this year. I am never unaffected by my memories of that day in 2001 and the sheer awfulness and terror I felt.
I was in Atlanta attending an industry tradeshow. I had been in New York just the week before. I watched the events unfold on the big screen in the show hall, where a client had a booth with the AV equipment all hooked up and ready to go. All travel was shut down and it ended up taking me three days and a whole lot of follies to make it home to California, where I lived at the time.
So many things in my life have happened as a result of that day. We moved our marriage up by a few months, because we didn’t know if he’d be around longer than that. All of the successive deployments and the war that has kept our family apart for years of our marriage.
Families just like ours all over the world are faced with long separations and deployments, and the heartbreaking ache they are left with when their family is divided.
As a photographer, I have had the amazing opportunity to capture some pretty amazing images for a few of these families. Through OpLove, I have had the opportunity to capture so many heartfelt moments: families being reunited for the first time after a long deployment; capture the moment a daddy holds his baby girl in his arms for the first time; witness the tears fall as a Marine steps on the bus, officially starting a long deployment; and SO many others.
I just wanted to say thank you to all of those military families out there for doing what you do. You are truly amazing!!!
