Today I am sharing a couple of the photos for my friend Julie that I took a week and a half ago here at my courtyard. I have a report that dear Jules is doing well this week and I am thrilled, as I know she wants special time with her children. I watched a news piece about her that was televised Monday night on Fox 13 News. It featured her sharing the idea of the living memorial service that I attended. Next Monday, four of Julie's good friends will be coming to the studio to start volunteering with Soulumination and I am so thankful for their care and consideration. Julie, you are inspiring me and others to live in the moment and to step forward as new challenges and opportunities arise. I will keep you posted but I am thinking of expanding the mission of Soulumination through my contact with some special women, Mary Tudor, Julie, Camari, Mary O'Leary, Vicki Ashberg and Lisa. I am thinking that we will work with parents who have terminal conditions and children between newborn and age 18. This would be giving children who lose a parent the same legacy we give to parents who lose children. The exact direction and scope will be carefully considered, but I feel something guiding me to new horizons while keeping me safely in touch with needs of the current projects.

We are not actively seeking help in the administrative area, but are open to letting someone with special heart and skills into the organization. I feel that in time the right person will find his or her way to Ballard and Soulumination and these amazing families. Someone who will stay with a little foundation for years and grow and thrive in the love and spirit of the work. Sarah is currently taking on bigger tasks and longer hours as we say goodbye to Christine and wish this lovely woman the very best in life.

I finally had the honor of meeting a very special 16-year-old girl I had been hearing about for almost eight months. She was well worth the wait, and I am so happy to say that I have been successful in connecting them with a wonderful oncologist at UW Medical Center who will guide them to help in the holistic approach to treating her tumor. She is alive today, according to her family, due to a macrobiotic diet that is extending her life. This dear girl suffers from a very rare brain tumor, but shows such spunk and style that she knocked me out. Her entire family was lively and loving and it was indeed an honor to be with them. I chatted with her mom and I will hopefully have releases soon so I can share this very special young woman with all of you.

On Thursday my good pal Courtney came for her photo shoot. I have been working with her and her family for a number of years, and even though Courtney was always in a wheelchair and wasn't verbal, she seemed so part of everything that I didn't understand her condition was such that she was a perfect candidate for Soulumination photos. Courtney's family was gracious enough to do a promo shoot for the Husky Nation Project before she even had her Soul shoot. I am also sharing a photo of Courtney with you all today. It was really nice to have time with Courtney and her parents without her lively and vivacious little sisters, who have always grabbed my time and concentration while Courtney patiently let us do our wild and crazy thing in Seattle parks. So Thursday was her day alone with my camera and her mom and dad and I feel that our bonding is solid and that she knows she is a favorite subject of mine.


I am so proud to say that we had help from our volunteer photographers on many fronts again. Susan Doupe made her first outing for Soul and worked with a very special family in Gig Harbor with a ten-year-old son who is one of our newest Soul Children. Sandra Coan worked with two families at Children's Hospital, graciously allowing me to enjoy a mini-retreat with some of my best friends and my daughter Llewelyn. Her shoots were with two beautiful baby boys and she is very pleased with the results, so it will be a pleasure to view the finished prints. Tara Clark did a follow-up shoot for a beautiful baby girl I had met briefly at Children's. I have viewed a disc of her work and it is very lovely, and I know that family will be pleased with the results.

My assistant Sarah and I are very busy here indeed and I send my heartfelt thanks to my volunteers, Brenna and Allison, for helping keep us on track. We are hoping to chat with a couple of people who are interested in helping us with the book work. Our new helper Zoe is working on fundraising ideas and board member Lori Sawyer is working on the yearly newsletter. At our board meeting, we determined that we can keep increasing the number of families we serve with each passing month. Thanks to so many loving donors we can move forward and add to the numbers, plus we have plenty of willing and incredible talent to work with families, so we are not limited by my schedule. We hear often from our wonderful associate in DC, Sarah Mattingly, who has shown devotion and talent in so many ways. We are just trying to work out details for Sarah and me to attend and show Soulumination work at the NTSAD family conference to be held in Maryland. It would be so wonderful to be with the Tay-Sachs families and to work with Sarah for a special presentation.

I close as always, in love and peace, Lynette

Todays photos are in tribute to my beautiful friend Julie and to the feelings that surrounded the time I spent with her on Friday. I think the shots I am posting say so much about the care and compassion we all felt that day and about the sorrow over her leaving us. I am so thankful that she and her sisters, mom, and best friends trusted me to record this time and that her sister Sandra took the photos shown here, for me to treasure. The celebration of Julie's life that I recorded on Saturday was remarkable, and the love and compassion carried me home with the feeling that Julie's children will always know that their mom was special indeed.

On Saturday I worked with a new Soul family here at my studio and I had the most wonderful time meeting the beautiful women who surround lovely Stella. During the shoot, Stella slipped away from her family and found me loading film, and gave me the nicest little secret hug. This little girl lives with a very rare form of epilepsy called Dravet Syndrome. I heard about the charming Stella while having a New Years supper at our neighbor's house. My new friend Robin was there also and she was gracious enough to set up the shoot and come with the family to help out.

My sincere thanks to Michael Good for taking time to visit a family I had worked with at Children's hospital. Due to snow, the dad was not able to make it to that photo shoot, so Michael graciously agreed to travel to their home to get those much desired father/daughter shots. He shared one with me this morning and they are lovely indeed. Our wonderful photographers, Sandra Coan and Susan Doupe, each have shoots this coming weekend and I have a new family today and one on Thursday. I must get more chores done this morning as angel baby Joey's mom is coming over to work on some art projects using the Joey photos to make gifts for her family.

This afternoon our intern Brenna and Maude May will start working together and we welcome a new volunteer, Zoe Bartlett, on Thursday, who will work to set some quidelines and strategy for the coming years. I am so thankful to have so many helpers with such heart. Our dear friend Jenni Wilson is again taking on our tax accounting work and we are so thrilled to have her expertise and calm guidance. I thank in advance my board members for joining me tomorrow to go over the budget for the coming year.

We are currently looking to hire someone one day per week to do all the daily book work for Soulumination as well as writing thank-you notes to donors. We use the QuickBooks program along with some Excel spreadsheets, and we need someone who is dependable and loves to keep a tidy and complete set of books. Being a nonprofit, the pay isn't huge, but we offer flexible hours and an atmosphere that is fun and loving and supportive. We hope to find someone who will take this on with a passion and stick with us through many years. I know there must be many wonderful people who would like to be helping out this foundation with their skills, so please let them know and they can email us at Lynette@soulumination.org.

Keep our families in your hearts as we move into 2007 with many new faces. In love and peace, Lynette

With the dawn of this year we have gotten so many requests for work with new families that the next couple of weeks could bring us at least five new families and three of our dear children returning for updated shots. It's always so nice to see some familiar faces and be allowed to record changes and progress.

The lovely baby girl I worked with most recently at Children's was not only a sweet subject, but she had an older brother that was so smitten with his sibling that it just melted me. He was of the age to start losing his teeth and he told me that the "Tooth Pharoah" would be taking his teeth once they fell out. I am charmed by his choice of title for this magic, and he and I were hoping that if it was a pharoah who came for teeth, then maybe you would receive some wonderful treasure under your pillow. It was a very special visit to Children's as I was also able to hand-deliver some recent photos and see my handsome new friend again as he awaits his bone marrow transplant. In walking toward the room of my new family I ran right into another Soul mom whom I had met and worked with before Christmas. She looked so beautiful and had such wise and thoughtful words to share.

Tomorrow morning brings a dear client and friend to my studio for photos with her best friends and sisters. She is facing the loss of her own life due to the ravages of cancer. I had the pleasure of working with her and her three children this past summer, and at that point all seemed under control. But I recently got an email letting friends know that the diagnosis was vastly different from summer's happiness and that on Saturday she and her husband would be hosting a party so she can say goodbye in person. I have offered to take my camera to record the loving and caring moments that I know will be so very powerful. After working with families for Soulumination I thought I had myself to a point where I could record the beauty in all of life and keep myself at least outwardly calm, but already my heart pounds and my whole being cries out in sorrow. We are also approaching the one year mark since losing my little pal Sydney, and just thinking back to the day of her beautiful memorial service leaves my knees weak. I so appreciate the words that arrive by email or through the mail that just give me that little boost, that grounding to move forward when it all seems too much. Please keep the families in your hearts, and as grief touches those around you, please remember that your support and listening ear are vitally important.

Two amazing things have happened this week to remind me that this path is blessed with grace and support. The first came in the form of a lovely check from Kohler company in honor of dear little baby Trevor. It couldn't have arrived at a more perfect time to give me that little nod that I was so desperately needing. Then yesterday the most touching email arrived from a local producer with NBC asking if I would consider letting her pitch a story for NBC nightly news with Brian Williams. Her touching email made me cry and brought me the nicest hug from my assistant and friend Deb Hamby. Never in this life would I have imagined that anyone would be willing to tell a story about a small kindness, and now it has been offered again after such past loving attention from the media. With these things there is always a big chance that it won't happen, but it's just so lovely that people's hearts are open to learning about grief and sharing the stories of the amazing families we meet with the work of Soulumination.

My dear friend Karen in California just completed the work on a fourth photo for one of our most recent families, and she has so kindly done it as a personal gift to the parents. We will be working with a new volunteer, artist Maude May, to create a special gift that will hold photos taken at this baby's funeral service. The images are powerful and cut to the heart with their poignancy. Its so wonderful to welcome new talent into the fold, and I so appreciate the help from both Karen and Maude.

I am posting Trevor's photo in thanks to Kohler and the friends of Trevor who have all been so supportive with funds to move this project forward. My sincerest thanks to those of you who kindly sent a card to my mom. I spoke with her yesterday and she was so happy to have received them. In love and peace, Lynette

One of the nicest things about the start of this year was the call from my mom saying she had reread the information that came with the cards (the 'Sydney cards,' as I call them) I put in her stocking. Those notes explain the project that Sydney and I did, resulting in these fun notecards. She said that she was so proud of Soulumination and that she was thrilled that I was her daughter. My mom has been plagued by so many health problems that our time with her on Christmas Eve left all of us very concerned. She is at home but hooked to a heart monitor that transmits information to the hospital so they can try to see the exact cause of some of the concerns. So, with her amazing support both financially and spiritually of Soul, I was thinking that if any of you would like to do something that would be grand for me, you might consider sending her a little card. I mail some little piece of art to my parents nearly every day, and they love that, and my mom truly loves Hallmark type cards that are little pick-me-up kind of missives. So if you should feel inclined, I would just be so thankful. She'd love to know briefly how you know about the work of Soulumination, or even just how you know me. Her address is: Lynette's mom at 290 Hereford Lane, Sequim, WA 98382. I am having you address it this way after hearing about many senior citizens having identity issues that affect them financially; plus I bet she'd get a kick out of that mode of address. If you are comfortable emailing me and I know you and you want her name, please just email and ask. She is pictured here today with her granddaughters, Tina, McKenzie and Llewelyn, and a cheery little line would be so thoughtful.

As I anticipated, the meeting with our new family, parents of a beautiful son who was stillborn, left me with a heavy heart but such admiration for this lovely couple. I told them I would surely love their dads, as those two men so wonderfully recorded that grandson of theirs. I am hoping to present the dad with the lovely piece of jewelry created by Denise, mother of Blake, under the tutelage of Karen, our gracious former jewelry supplier. Four new bracelets arrived yesterday, the first of many to be created by Denise in memory of Blake. You can see Blake and read his story in the gallery of this Soulumination site.

We are so pleased to say that Susan Doupe is all set to go out for her first Soulumination photo shoot. We had word of a little boy in Gig Harbor whose family would like our services, and this will be a great way for a wonderful talent to join the work of Soulumination.

I am going to Children's today for a shoot with another new family, and I hear the mom has a lovely tiny pink satin dress all picked out for the photos. I will also deliver photos to our most recent family, awaiting a donor match for a bone marrow transplant. Their photos show so many fetching smiles on the face of their son.

I once again thank those clients of mine who have so generously supported Soulumination financially. Each time a donation arrives, it truly knocks me out. Yesterday we received a lovely donation from clients of our dear friend Sarah Mattingly. She is our hero in the Washington, DC, area. Sarah not only set up the show in DC but she now shoots in our name on the East Coast while waiting for the Children's hospital to complete all the work to create their own "foundation." We also received an amazing donation in honor of the life of our dear Trevor. I sincerely thank each parent who has so kindly mentioned Soulumination as a recepient in their child's memorial. This type of honor is of such a heartfelt nature that I feel our little project has the strong grace that will lead to more and more service to families desiring beautiful memories. I close feeling humbled and protected, in love and peace, Lynette

So envision spending over half of your 4 month old sons life in hospitals and then imagine that much of the time has been basically quaranteened. The wonderful family I met yesterday has done just that, shepherding this now lively and handsome little guy to a state where he is round enough and strong enough for a bone marrow transplant. From there think of gathering over 800 people in your home town to be tested for bone marrow donations, but finding that none of them are a match for your little guy. This family has hope of the match being found soon and I would encourage all who can to make that step toward donation. The worlds I enter with camera in hand are often so normal seeming with beautiful people loving their incredible kids, but then you step out and drive home and realize that the challenges they face are anything but normal. I so hope that the little kindness of the photos of Soulumination help them to know that respect and admiration are theirs. So often the families tell me that they are just doing what any of us would do for our child, but the truth is many of us have the amazing good fortune of never having to face the type of challenges that they face daily and often for months and years on end.

Let me again salute the nurses of Children's and say that I see such dedication and kindness in their daily toils. I personally know a few both from my private life and from the work of Soul and they are such treasures.

We are looking at working with 6 or 7 more new families this month as well as working to update shots of 2 our our kiddos who have made some big steps since we last photographed them. I am so thankful for your financial support and for the kind words that come our way most days, it truly helps to have such caring, especially when there are days that tears are the outlet. I send hugs to our photographer Susan Doupe who is traveling to Gig Harbor soon to work with her first family

Today I look forward to meeting the mom of the latest child that we have been working with. This beautiful baby boy was not part of Soul in the usual way, but we are working to build lovely archives of the photos taken by family and friends at his birth. With the help I mentioned last week from our wonderful Sarah here in the office and Karen in California we are part way through the process and today both mom and dad will come to share more of his legacy. My knees get weak when I think of them entering the courtyard as when dad came he brought that tender sorrow and vulnerable air that always moves me in the deepest of ways. Since I have seen their birth photos I know how utterly lovely this couple will be and I truly welcome them with open arms as they are a part of Soul that takes me back to the day my niece was briefly recorded by my camera almost 10 years ago. I have often struggled with how you find a way to cope with a loss of someone that you had such hopes and dreams wrapped up in but there are now days when I quietly reflect that the gift in my life of a niece that I didn't get to know was that now my eyes are open to loss in a way that has lead me to meet and embrace many many new friends and families. This niece has helped me forge strong and lasting bonds also with the other photographers of Soul and her inspiration will hopefully lead to many more amazing discoveries in my own heart. I am showing a photo of her little sister today that I took for Tammara Stroud of Baby Nouveau. Tammara and her daughter, Alexandra are great supporters of Soulumination and I think this shot captures the beautiful clothing created by Tammara but also the joy all the Johnson's feel in having the gift of this youngest niece.

I close with thoughts of the photos that are waiting at Children's to be sent to one of the families I met on the 20th of December. There are a few in their selection that will stay forever in my heart. I know it wasn't easy to allow a total stranger into the room at that moment, but I so hope that the incredible love that is visible in the shots will be some comfort and always proudly show how their son was such a beautiful boy. In love and peace, Lynette