I won my first blog award today and I'm pretty excited about that because I've never been nominated for anything in blogland. It's really lovely that people like my writing rambling
But I wanted it to go to the real winners. This post is inspired by two of my brothers. One is no longer with us, the other is a genius who brings ideas to life and I'm so proud of him.
It all began with the lead up to Mother's Day. I really wanted to do something special for my mother. I knew it would be a hard day. It was her first one without her own mother and it was also the anniversary of the day my baby brother Rory had passed away. As well as that, I wanted to honour the mothers who I have come to know and love who don't have their babies in their arms today.
So we worked together, we talked about the fact that the essence of our humanity is founded on Hope. We all have different kinds of hope: hope that tomorrow will be a better day, hope that the way ahead will be brighter. Those of us who are religious place great hope in Him. And to me, one of the primary things that expresses the essence of hope is often found in the simplest and most beautiful things, like a flower. So we worked together, me painstakingly writing these precious babies names on the flower and then worked together to create and develop this picture:

Since then we have created these images for these incredible women and their families.
For Heather and Mike, mother and father of Maddie

For the Green family

The Coyne Family

The Finn Family


Now I'm not particularly creative, or artistic and I find it astonishing that two people who are central in my life, my brother Richard and my friend Carly allow me to work with them, Rich in photography and Carly at Whispered Support. I'm so proud of my brother. His career is really taking off, but he still takes the time to work with me and teach me how to create pictures that I think in some small way are symbols of Hope. Thank you Richard and Rory, for continually challenging me to do better, to be better.
I love you.