Ella’s Touch is my charitable program where I give a session with a gift CD of images to families with a terminally ill family member. Please use the form at the bottom to nominate yourself or another family for an Ella’s Touch session.
For at least two years before meeting Ella, I’d been thinking about the way I want to give back to the community. I heard of two families I really wanted to help create special relationship based images for. Each time I asked the friend who shared the story with me to talk to the families about a free session & CD of images with me. Each time the moms did not want to do it. I was heartbroken. I know in seeing blog posts and stories of families facing such difficult losses how much each of them appreciated having images during the time after learning their loved one would pass and their loved one passing. Sometimes doing something hard will bring great healing and reward later. I know the young girl {age 2} who lost her beautiful young mother to cancer would not have minded seeing her a little less beautiful in images during their last months together.
My passion for capturing families with a terminally ill family member is great. Guy and I have committed to doing several {up to 6} gift sessions a year to give back to the community and provide wonderful memories, despite times of great trial, to the surviving family members. Those bittersweet days together are often when the greatest lessons in love are learned.
I met a friend named Tiffany at church when we first moved to the Raleigh area. We both served in our church children’s program, and through serving with her I found out what a humble, sweet and truly beautiful person she is. I saw her one day over a year after when we moved to a different congregation noticing she was pregnant with their fourth child. Just before she was due to give birth I noticed a lot of messages to her on Facebook profile about praying for a good outcome & many people expressing love and support for the upcoming birth. Her husband Chris is a great writer who established a blog named Ella’s Touch to write about the birth of their daughter and her trials. They eventually found out her bowels would never work right, with doctors giving them the heartbreaking news she would not live a long life. This was especially devastating as they had lost a son at only 6 months of age just over a year before.
Tiffany and Chris were very receptive to the idea of capturing Ella and their family in images. We completed two sessions. One just after she came home from the hospital and another after she had beaten all the doctors grim short term predictions.
Here is Ella.
A message from Ella’s father, Chris, who is also the author of Ella’s Touch:
“Although Ella has only been with us 9 months, she has inspired us as individuals by reminding us of the fragility of life. From the time we found out she was terminal until now, we’ve been touched by the sheer number of people that have expressed interest in the well being of our family. Each day we wake up with Ella smiling at us is another day we are grateful for. Shannon has spent countless hours capturing these special moments with Ella in a medium that we will treasure for the rest of our lives. What a truly pure exhibition of humanity. Thank you for making our moments with Ella timeless.”
I can’t even express how special it has been to be a part of Ella’s adventures in touching the lives of those she encounters.
Lifelong Impressions is currently accepting nominations for immediate families with a terminally ill family member to receive a gift session which includes a CD of all the full resolution images {around 30-40}. This nomination can be for your own family or someone you know. Please fill out the form in this message.
Shannon White
Lifelong Impressions
919-585-6433
shannon@lifelongimpressions.com
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