Motherhood

From the beginning, 

We are preparing

to let them go.

But we never do.

The first photo is of my friend with her sweet baby girl who was very premature but was strong and is now a healthy and happy two year old.

The second photo is one that I take at every wedding. There is something so beautiful to me about the Mother's hands and the delicate buttons on the back of her daughter's wedding dress.Certainly not the first time she will help her daughter dress, but perhaps the last.

The third photo is of a mother watching her son's wedding ceremony. The groom's mother always cries the most and this was surprising to me the first few weddings that I photographed. I believe that we, mothers of boys, really struggle with giving our boys away to another woman. Perhaps it is because our boys don't grow up fantasizing and planning their wedding day like little girls do and so we just don't prepare ourselves. I'm not here yet, but someday I will be...

The fourth is a mother and daughter in the final moments before her daughter's wedding. 

The fifth is of a mother, a beautiful and graceful woman, comforting her 21 month old baby boy three weeks before he passed away, after a year of fighting the cancer that finally took him.

Motherhood, in all it's moments, is beautiful.

These were all taken with a Canon EOS 5D MarkII, with various lenses. I made up for my previous months of iPhone photos and not posting at all last month with more pictures than I was supposed to share. I hope you don't mind my not being able to narrow the moments. I love the Mom's that I get to work with.