Jobe's final moments as the "baby of the family"; a lynx gives a most significant gift to my new grandson

Here he is, Jobe, in his final day as the baby of the family. For one-and-a-half years he has occupied this spot. Throughout this time, he has known nothing but total adoration from virtually every adult that he has ever met. At home and elsewhere, as the cutest and youngest person in the group, he has been the center of attention and that attention has all been good attention.

Jobe thinks that is just how life is - something that takes at the center of affection, attention and adoration.

While I am confident that much affection, attention and adoration will continue to come his way, an event is about to take place that will soon remove him as the central focus point of adoration, affection and attention. Another cute person will soon occupy that cherished but briefly held spot.

At the very moment this picture was taken, his mother was in the hospital in labor and had been for over seven hours. I had gone into town to help Margie take care of Jobe and his brother until his new sibling could be born. Margie and I have just picked the two of them up from daycare. We will walk home with them, as only a few hundred yards separate their daycare center from their house.

Before we reach the house, we stop at the park, where Kalib and his grandma played on the teeter totter. Very recently, Kalib and his mother were walking down the path in the space between the first picture and this one, when Kalib stopped to point out that he had just spotted what he called a "kitty." 

He wanted to pet the kitty.

Lavina looked and was shocked to see a lynx standing about 20 feet away. The lynx hissed at them and then dashed into the trees.

Anchorage is our big city. This is the kind of city Anchorage is.

Melanie had joined us. She watched as Kalib climbed a rope ladder.

Jobe slid down the slide.

At the house, Rex and Kalib played with toy trains as we all waited for the call that would tell us it was time to head to the hospital.

Eventually, my effervescent, ever pleasant, good-natured little grandson grew tired and irritable. It was time for bed. Margie gave him a bath and, with help from Lisa, I trundled him into his jammies. He resisted all the way.

Margie took him into the bed where he usually sleeps with his parents. She would spend the night with him there, beneath the photo of one of his parents' wedding kisses.

Rex left with his girlfriend Courtney and her mother Janet. I returned to the living room to wait for that call with Lisa, Melanie and Charlie. Martigny was there, too, coming toward me from Lisa, who adores all cats.

As we visited at the kitchen table, Melanie and Charlie pondered a grapefruit. We all hoped for a girl. In theory, if this baby were not a girl, then this would end our chance at getting a granddaughter and a niece from Lavina and Jacob as they plan to stop at three.

After a few hours, it began to appear that the big event would not happen for awhile.

Everybody went home, leaving Margie and me alone with Kalib and Jobe.

I slept on the couch, but I didn't sleep good. I was still awake at 1:30. After I finally fell asleep, I woke often, with strange dreams and visions playing in my head. The details have gone soft, but the feelings remain.

I was a bit worried. Lavina had gone into the hospital at about 10:00 AM, after her water broke. At about 10:00 PM, her contractions had suddenly stopped. A womb without water is a womb that cannot long be lived in. This baby needed to get born.

At 5:30, I awoke for what I knew was for good.

I went into the master bedroom and laid down on the bed with the sleeping Margie and the sleeping Jobe. Soon, I got a text from Lavina. We then spent some time texting back and forth. As she always is, she was being brave and tough and pleasant, but she did confide that she did not know why it was happening this way, and said she was almost at a breaking point.

If the baby did not get out of the womb within 24 hours of the water break, then she would likely be facing a C-section.

Still, she inquired with concern about Margie, who had spent a couple of days not feeling well, and she gave me instructions on getting the boys to daycare in time for breakfast once they awoke. After we had accomplished that, she wanted us to come and visit.

After we dropped the boys off, Margie and I headed over. The delivery room had been darkened. Quiet - except for the sound of the baby's heartbeat, broadcast and amplified through the monitor, mixed with the sounds of pain and hard breathing that Lavina would make every time a contraction would hit - yes, she was having contractions again - about two minutes apart.

The doctor moved the C-section time from 10:00 AM to 12:00 noon - but if that baby was not out or coming out at noon, then it would be a C-section delivery. Despite the contractions, Lavina did not feel that vital urge to push.

The day before, I had dropped my Canon 5D Mark II off at the repair shop to get the sensor cleaned before I left for New York. I had only my Canon 1Ds MIII with only one lens, a wide angle. It is the most expensive camera that I ever bought but it is also a big, bulky tank-like thing and it clicks loudly.

It does not do nearly as well in low light as the 5D. I decided not to worry about pictures until the baby was born, because I did not want to disrupt the room with loud, clicking, shutter noises. So I sat down and made myself quiet, but I did take this frame. This is Lavina's good friend Natalie, Maid of Honor at her wedding. Nat has assited Lavina with the births of all her baby's.

Nat knows how to massage her aches and pains, how to help keep her spirits up. She is quiet and unobtrusive almost to the point of invisibility, but she is there and Lavina knows it.

Jacob, too. He is there. Lavina knows it.

Soon, the clock passed 11:30. No baby. Still no urge to push. The C-section began to appear inevitable.

I believe it was already a few minutes past 11:40 when Lavina got a sudden and painful urge to push - and she let us know it. The attendant nurse had stepped out for a minute. Lavina's doctor was on another floor. The nurse was summoned., appeared almost instantly, then summoned other nurses and the doctor. In just a moment, the other nurses had joined her. The doctor headed for the elevator, but something apparently happened with that elevator that slowed her descent.

The nurses moved with amazing rapidity and intensity, moving apparatus here, there, adjusting the birth light. They knew this baby was coming - fast. They could not wait for the elevator to bring the doctor. They had to act - now.

I kept my vision discretely turned away from the spot of birth. Suddenly, I heard a tiny but wonderfully strong voice cry out in pain and shock.

Then I was crying; suddenly, I was laughing; laughing and crying. Suddenly, there was a baby in front of me; crying out loud, the blood of new life upon it. My tears blurred my vision, my laughter unsteadied my hand; I took the picture, anyway.

Who is this nurse that delivered my third grandson into this world, as his doctor was trapped elsewhere by an elevator?

I don't recall seeing her before this event happened, nor do I recall seeing her after my new grandson was safely delivered and cleaned up.

Whoever you are, nurse, I thank you. With all my heart and soul, I thank you.

You have my eternal gratitude - and the gratitude of everyone in this family.

Grandson # 3 was born at 11:47 AM - after his mom had been in labor for approximately 26 hours.

And here I am, still complaining about how exhausted I am.

He was a couple of weeks early and weighed five pounds, 13 ounces and was 18.5 inches long.

Although we did not know, we had all been hoping for a girl. Jacob and Lavina had a number of girl's names lined up, but were short on boy's names.

It would be awhile before grandson #3 would get his name.

Mother, father and baby.

Soon, Rex, who had been working on the construction of another part of Providence Hospital, joined us.

Everyone, including me, took turns holding our new grandson. Here he is, with his grandma. She just met him, yet, already, she loves him as dearly as she loves anyone who ever lived.

He has a name now:

Lynxton Dischinn'd Hess.

Lynxton - in honor of the lynx who surprised his mother shortly before he was born.

Dischinn'd - the name of the White Mountain Apache clan that his grandmother, father and all his aunts and uncles belong too.

It is the way of both the Apache and Navajo to go with their mom's clan and tribe, so Lynxton will be of the Lo'kah, and will be enrolled in the great Navajo Nation - home of a major branch of the Dene, whose numbers reach into northern Canada and Interior Alaska.

Apaches are also of the larger Dene, but they call themselves, "N'dee."

Navajo, Apache, Athabascan - these are all names placed upon them by other people; just as "Eskimo" was placed upon the Iñupiat and their other Inuit relatives.

Soon, a medical technician came in to do a blood draw. Lavina could not bear to see the flesh of her son get poked, nor to hear the sound of him crying out in pain, so she plugged her ears, closed her eyes and pulled the sheet over her face.

Little Lynxton didn't cry much at all - a short little blast with the first poke, none that I remember with the subsequent pokes.

Jacob feels the tiny body of his new son...

...then checks out his tiny hand...

...and then his tiny feet.

Dad is pleased.

Margie and I then returned to Jacob and Lavina's house at somewhere between 2:00 and 3:00 PM, exhausted, ready to nap.

Margie lay down to sleep on the short arm of the "L" shaped couch. Above her hung a picture that I had taken of Kalib on the first day of his life, alongside the Apache cradleboard his Aunt LeeAnn had made for him. Lynxton will be carried in a Navajo cradleboard, made by his Aunt Cori.

You will see pictures of it in the future.

I lay down on the long arm, but, exhaused though I was, I could not go to sleep.

So I got up, went outside, sat in the car and listened to the radio - first, Terri Gross on Fresh Air, followed by All Things Considered.

I wish I could fall asleep and stay asleep the way Margie can. I think my life would be a lot easier then. I think I would accomplish more and do better work. I might even be able to exercise some business sense. Perhaps we would not be in the continual jam that we always are... if only I knew how to sleep.

To be quite honest with you, given this continual blur of exhaustion that I live in, I don't know how I accomplish anything at all.

At 4:20 PM, I headed toward the camera shop to pick up the 5D. On the way back, I stopped at daycare to get Kalib and Jobe.

I saw Jobe first, in the playground on the other side of the fence. He saw me and came running to the fence.

His life had just undergone a change of gigantic significance, but he had no idea of it.

Yet, when I look at this picture, I almost think that, somehow, even if he did not know, he had a sense of it.

He had been living with a pregnant mother for almost nine months. He probably picked up more than we might think.

Little people are smart.

Jobe is very smart.

I picked up Margie and the four of us went to the hospital, where Lavina had been moved from the delivery room on the first floor to a room on the fourth.

Jobe and Kalib got their first look at their new brother.

Lavina then handed the not-yet named Lynxton to his Aunt Melanie, and took both of her other babies into her arms.

Then each got some alone time with their mom.

Lisa was there, too.She had held him before we arrived, but I did not get to witness it.

After Lisa got up, Kalib came over. At first, he refused to look at or further acknowledge his new brother.

Then his dad coaxed him to come and give a touch. He seemed to like it.

Jobe, however, had taken a look and it seemed that was enough for him. He was brought over, but no one could convince him to look at or acknowledge his little brother.

When his dad brought his brother close, Jobe tried to push him away. I am not worried, though. It is hard to give up a position so sweet as baby of the family. Kalib did not want to yield that position to Jobe, but he did. And Kalib loves Jobe.

He does experience some natural sibling rivalry and jealousy, but nothing that strikes me as serious.

I am confident Jobe will love his younger brother.

Still, I do worry a bit about his position as the middle brother.

His Uncle Caleb was the middle brother in our family, between Jacob and Rex, and often found it a tough place to be.

Here he is, our third grandson, named for the lynx that suprised his mother: Lynxton Dischinn'd Hess.

I don't know what time I drove home. Seven PM? Approaching 8:00?

I was exhausted, wonderfully happy and yet painfully sad. Wonderfully happy for the obvious reason; painfully sad because I am headed to New York City tomorrow. I have been greatly looking forward to that trip and still am, but suddenly it has become the event that is going to prevent me from seeing my new grandson again until sometime in early October - and then only briefly because I must go north almost immediately afterward.

I do not know how long I will be gone then - perhaps a week, perhaps a month.

My little grandson will grow rapidly in my absence. He will change significantly - and I will miss it.

This knowledge left me feeling down - made me wonder if maybe it is time for me to forsake my wild, wandering, ways, settle down and devote myself to my grandchildren.

Many people my age have retired, many will retire within just a few years of the age I now am.

I ran into one of my retired friends at Walmart the other day. He had worked fulltime for what over the years has been my biggest client. He is three years older than me. He looked happy and fit, relaxed; he told me how great it was to be retired, how he could now afford to run his own bed and breakfast business and soon planned to start a furniture shop with his sons. He was really enjoying his grandchildren.

It didn't really matter if his businesses made money; he had enough to live on.

But I can't retire. For one, I have been a lousy businessman and have no means to retire. Furthermore, I have never wanted to reitre. I have too much work left to do.

Yet, a huge amount of that work could be done right here, at my house, in Wasilla, less than an hour's drive from my grandchildren.

But that ain't gonna to happen. I can't afford to stay home. And at my core, as placid as I may appear on the surface, I churn in perpetual restlessness and wanderlust.

One day, I will quit wandering. On that day, or perhaps the next, I hope someone pitches me into the creamatorium and then casts my ash to the wind.

But maybe I am wrong in this long-held notion.

I missed so much of my children's growing up. Maybe I should be there for my grandchildren.

Maybe... maybe... nah... can't happen... well, maybe... but if so, how?

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I leave for New York City early tomorrow (Friday) morning, so I will not post again prior to Saturday, possibly even later.

All alone at Family on Easter Sunday morning

Margie has been gone for just about a week now and I have breakfasted out altogether too often, so I had resolved that on this morning, both for the sake of our pocketbook and my health, I would stay home and cook oatmeal.

But when I woke up for the final time, buried in cats, I did not want to get up at all. I certainly did not want to get up and cook oatmeal. So I lay there, thinking about it, and it suddenly occurred to me that it was Easter Sunday. I did not think it right that on Easter Sunday, I should get up, cook oatmeal and eat it all alone on the couch.

I decided that, fiscal prudence and dietary health be damned - on both counts, I am pretty much hopelessly lost, anyway - I was going to have my Easter breakfast at Mat-Su Valley Family Restaurant.

Had Caleb been around, I would have invited him, too, but even though we sleep under the same roof - I sporadically at night and he through astoundingly long hours in the day - I rarely see him. He was off, somewhere.

So off I went to Family, alone.

"Do you need a menu?" Connie asked, knowing full well that I wouldn't.

"No," I answered, "I'll go with the omelette today."

"Denver, with mushrooms, hash browns lightly cooked, twelve-grain toast on the delay," she filled in the rest. Normally, she would have been 100 percent right, but today, instead of toast, I decided I wanted pancakes.

A bit later, Norman came walking by, carrying coffee and water. 

I got to thinking about my grandsons, who I have not seen now for a couple of weeks. They will spend today with Margie, her mom, their parents, Lavina's mom, sister and other family members from both the Apache and Navajo sides of the family at Margie's place of birth - Carrizo Canyon, on the White Mountain Apache Indian Reservation.

It will almost certainly be warm, and they will gather seasoned oak and make a cooking fire. On that fire, they will cook Apache bread, slices of steak, hot dogs, and multi-colored Apache corn.

The adults will hide colored eggs here and there and then the little ones will go find them.

Some of those eggs will be hidden in plain sight and the bigger little ones will have to leave these eggs be.

These eggs will be for Jobe to find.

And yes, since he left here two weeks ago, Jobe has become a full-fledged walker.

In my mind, I can just picture the gleam in his eyes and his bright smile, as he toddles excitedly about, grabbing eggs with his chubby little hands. Maybe with a little help and guidance, he will then place his eggs in whatever type of basket he has been given.

And I will miss it.

I, his grandpa, who first photographed him only minutes after his birth, who, despite my wandering ways, have tried hard to document each step of his life as he has moved alone, will miss his first Easter Sunday Easter egg hunt.

Kalib, of course, will now be an old pro at Easter egg hunting. I hope he enjoys it, anyway. I hope he and cousin Gracie have a good time, gathering eggs.

I do pretty good alone. Better than most people, I think.

Yet, I felt awful sad and lonely, as I sat right here, in Family Restaurant, eating my Denver omelette with mushrooms. And yes, as I do throughout each and every day, I thought of Soundarya, too, and wondered how she and Anil might have spent the day, if they had but survived.

Even though she was Hindu, Sandy was very much up on all the Christian holidays.

Then along came Meda, refilling coffee cups. I had not seen Meda before today. She is new on the job - four or five days, she said. She said she loves the job, it is "awesome."

She was a little bit shy and slightly coy, but very friendly and warm and when she poured my refill, I felt a little better.

But still, I needed Jobe... and if not Jobe, at glimpse at that magical beam of the spectrum of life that Jobe currently occupies.

I looked around, and could not see a single child in Family Restaurant. I knew there would be plenty of children later, when families began to drop by after church, but I could see none, now.

And then, just as I finished my last bite, I heard a little squeal, accompanied by the sound of tiny foot-falls pattering rapidly across the floor.

A tiny girl, right about Jobe's age, scampered out of the large dining room beyond.

It was Molly.

Just Jobe's age.

On Easter Sunday morn.

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Woman pushes a baby past church

I did visit Larry again yesterday, and was there when his parents and other family and friends also came by. I do have a little series of pictures to post, but my time has been distracted today by many annoying little tasks that had to be done and now I have no time to make that post.

So, instead, just to put up something, I post this one picture that I took after I left the hospital and began the drive home. As you can see, it is of a woman pushing a baby in a stroller past a church. I will post the series of Larry, family and friends tomorrow.

As the past few days had been, it was very warm, with temperatures well into the 40's F.

But I had the radio on and they said the forecast was for 5 to seven inches of snow overnight.

I wonder if Anchorage got it?

Out here, we got perhaps less than two inches.

I noticed on the news last night that Anchorage's record low for the date was - 19 F, so out here in this neighborhood it would probably be a good ten degrees colder than that - as it would be in the colder parts of Anchorage.

But right now, such temperatures feel impossible. Despite the new snow, it feels like winter is over.

Yet, even in southcentral, one should never fullly trust such feelings this time of year.

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New baby comes to my nearby, invisible, family - suddenly, they become visible

One photographer's search for community, home and family.

The above is the subtitle of my blog, and I came up with it after I realized that my entire career as a photojournalist has been my own personal search for all three of these things: community, home and family. I define each term broadly, and in a way that pretty much opens the entire world up to this investigation.

My family, as anyone who has spent much time with this blog knows, is made up of many individuals of various ethnic and cultural backgrounds, some of whom I have a direct blood or marital tie to and some of whom I don't.

Of course, if a photographer is going to seek out his family, it must include those with whom he has a direct blood and marital ties and this is something that I have long had in mind to do. 

My blood-tie family, like so many, is scattered about, coast-to-coast, over the oceans and on various continents. So, to seek out this family, I have imagined that sooner or later I would find the time and resource required to do the traveling necessary to track down a good sample of them, wherever they live, from my birthplace of Ogden, Utah, to Thailand, where one of my older brothers has apparently relocated (complicated story).

Yet, I have blood family close by - less than half-an-hours drive from our house - and virtually every day I wake up and fail to think of these family members. It does not occur to me that they are close by and that we could get together now and then and see what each other is up to.

The last time I had laid eyes upon a member of this Alaska-based part of my blood family was, oh, I don't know - close to 25 years ago, maybe?

Ten days ago, a new baby was born into this family and here she is: Makiah Young. Suddenly, these blood-tie family members have appeared in my life - most of them for the first time.

The woman in the back is my first cousin, Mary Lynn Spahr, eight years my senior and the oldest daughter of my Aunt Velma, one of my mother's two younger sisters. She lives in Malad, Idaho, where she grew up on the family ranch. Last week, she called me on the phone to tell me me about Makiah, her newest granddaughter and to let me know that she would be in Alaska until today.

She invited Margie and I to come to dinner last Friday, but I had a beard contest to go to, so the dinner was put off until last night.

Mary Lynn has her hands on the shoulders of her granddaughter, Madeline, who makes a dinner salad as another granddaughter, Mina, cuts up the pineapple. Mary Lynn introduced me to the girls as their cousin, Billy. I would be more inclined to think of myself as their Uncle Bill, but when it comes to the English language, the definition of relatives quickly becomes a confusing mess - at least to me. Maybe to some it makes sense.

Anyway, whether they be my cousins or my nieces, the two girls have grown up unbeknownst to me, and I to them, in a house that is 20 some miles away from my house - not far off a highway that I travel very frequently.

And this is Melissa.

Mina with her baby sister, Makiah.

And here is Austin, a brother to Makiah, perhaps a cousin to me, but I am more inclined to think of him as nephew.

And here is the littlest brother/cousin/nephew, Wyatt - eight years old.

The electric-green fingernails atop baby's head belong to Melissa.

To the left is Jennifer Young, Mary Lynn's daughter and the only member of the Alaska-based nuclear family that I had met until last night. Husband and dad Dan Young offers the blessing on the food before we eat.

As regular readers know, I was born into and raised in a Mormon family descended on both sides from the original Mormons, including the pioneers who settled in a much larger swath of the mountain west than just Utah. Although I am forever rooted in the heritage, my life has pulled me and all my family out of the Mormon congregation.

Mary Lynn and her family, including those who live here in Alaska, have remained dedicated and active Mormons. Dan is a doctor and Jennifer a nurse who works with heart patients at the Alaska Native Medical Center. She has cared for and will care for many of my friends from Arctic and rural Alaska.

I did not ask if Dan descends from Brigham Young and is therefore some kind of cousin to Steve Young. I must find out.

That's brother/cousin/nephew Mitchell, pouring himself a glass of water. 

And this is the view from the family's living room window. Standing left to right: Foraker, Hunter and Denali, which, if measured from its base to its top, is the greatest mountain not only in all of North America, but all the world.

To have such a view, right out your living room window!

I don't know exactly how far these mountains are from the Young house, but I would guess about 200 miles.

Jennifer with Makiah. Two that were not here this evening are attending college. Makiah was unexpected. She came as a surprise - but a surprise the family is delighted to have. In total, there are eight children in Jennifer and Dan's blended family.

Cousin Mary Lynn... she looks pretty good, I'd say. When I was growing up, each summer, my family would take my Dad's vacation time and drive to Utah. Along the way, we would stop at the Ipsen Ranch just outside of Malad, Idaho.

We never stayed for long - maybe overnight and part of the next day - but the stops in Malad were always my favorite part of the vacation.

Aunt Velma had a big family - 11 children, including Mark, just younger than me and Brenda, a few months older, and we loved to play together.

Although she was nearly eight years older, I loved Mary Lynn, too. You could say that I adored her. She was beautiful and vicacious and she took me on my first horseback ride. I was tiny and the horse was big and I was frightened that I was going to get bucked off and killed but she spoke soothingly to me and with her horse kept my horse walking at a slow, easy, pace and so everything was fine - until we turned around to go back.

Then that horse took off on a gallop and I could not slow it down.

That horse wanted to get home.

At least once, I followed her into the barn, where she milked the cows.

She had to get up very early in the morning to do these things.

Not many Americans live like that anymore.

Margie gets to hold Makiah.

Margie and Makiah.

On a Young bookshelf stands this picture of my Aunt Velma. I hate to single any one aunt out as my favorite, but Aunt Velma was the one I got to know the best and I loved her dearly. I spent the summer that I turned 17 living with Aunt Velma and Uncle Perry and working on their ranch alongside my cousin Mark.

It was, I would say, one of those landmark summers of youthful life. About 30 years ago, I began a novel loosly based on that summer and wrote about 100 pages, before the novel disappeared into the constant shift and shufffle of my life.

I have no idea where that 100 pages is now.

I would like to find it and finish it before I die, but, realistically, I am afraid to commit such a thing. I have another novel that I am working on a bit right now, about a Mormon missionary in Lakota country. If I complete but one novel in this life, I intend it to be that one.

Over two decades ago, Velma came to Alaska to visit Jennifer and I took her for an airplane ride in the now-crashed Running Dog. The ride was a big disappoinment to me, because the valley was completely socked in by heavy overcast and I could not fly out of it. We were flying in the midst of the some of the greatest mountains in the world, but I could not show her a single peak.

The clouds shrouded them all. So all I did was show her Wasilla and Palmer from about 1000 feet, and a few farms and a bit of countryside.

Disappointed though I was, everytime that I saw her after that, she brought up that ride and stated how much she had enjoyed seeing all the settlement below us.

But it was not the settlement that I wanted to show her - it was the wilderness, the mountains, the unsettled country.

I last saw her in June of 2007, at Dad's funeral. Her health was good and she looked much younger than her 80-some years. I had this hope that before too long I could sit down with her in the ranchhouse outside of Malad and have her relate some family history to me.

Sadly, life took a couple of very hard turns for her after that, including a fatal automobile accident that took the life of her second youngest son, my once-little cousin Jeff, who I had become fond of that summer in Idaho, and she passed on before I got the chance.

Austin, Mitchell and the older sisters all left for other places before Margie and I did, so Mary Lynn gave them some goodbye hugs.

Mary Lynn also asked me if I remembered a certain incident that took place between my mother, her father and my late brother Ron in a hospital after he broke his neck in a motor cycle accident. It was an incident that was imperative to saving my brother's life.

At first, my mind drew a blank. I could not think of the incident at all. Then she told me what she had heard of it and it started to come back. Then it came vividly back. Memory is a funny thing. You forget and yet, you don't forget. The information is back there, hanging unseen in the fog.

When this incident happened, my maternal grandfather had been dead for over a quarter-of-a-century. I did not witness the event myself, but Mom had been very intense in her telling of it.

In Mormon families, the veil between the mortal and the spirits of the dead is considered to be very thin, and this kind of story of communion between the living and the dead is common. We talked of other similar incidents that are spoken of among our families.

This is not unique to Mormons, though. And the sense of it can happen even between a strayed Mormon man and his close Hindu friend as well.

It can happen with Iñupiats, it can happen with Apaches.

It can happen among all people who believe it can happen and it can even surprise people who don't believe and can happen among them as well.

Still, it all remains a mystery to me.

My life experience has left me without any firm belief.

Just before Margie and I left, Mary Lynn took us in to see this crib set that she, Jennifer and the girls had worked long, hard, and lovingly to sew.

Then, for the first time ever, she laid baby Makiah in it.

Soon, all the family still present in the house gathered to see Makiah in her crib.

Do you think Wyatt adores his baby sister? Do you think he will be her protector?

Airplanes, real or model, always catch my eye. Mary Lynn had bought this one for Wyatt to use in a school project.

It was airplanes that helped bind me to my dad, to my brother, Ron, and to Alaska.

Just as we were leaving, Jennifer brought Makiah out to say goodbye.

Now, here is the question - will another quarter century pass before I see her or another member of this segment of my blood family again?

They are so close and yet I get so easily distracted and taken up by my own little enterprises.

The thought just now occurs to me that I might prevent this from happening this time by giving myself an assignment: to photograph Makiah every month. If I were to do that, I would probably get to better know her mom, dad, brothers and sisters as well.

I'm afraid to give myself such an assignment, though - afraid that I will still get swept up in my own life and will fail to follow through.

Still, I think the idea is a good one.

If I were to do it, I'll bet Makiah could then get to know her cousins, Kalib and Jobe, as well.

I won't commit myself just yet, but I will think about it.

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Zero degree baby; Kalib and his spatula, part 2; Larry Aiken paints a dream of belugas; a walk through the valley of the shadow

As I walked yesterday in the zero degree* cold, I happened upon a one-year old baby, who had also gone out for a walk - only she had traveled by stroller, not foot.

This is she - baby Lily. Her mother, Christie, told me that she and baby Lily go out regularly, whatever the weather, and baby Lily enjoys it all. It does not distress her to be out in the cold - unless a fierce wind is blowing and strikes her right in the face. Her mother protects her, so that she does not feel that wind for more than seconds.

Sometimes, they walk for hours, Mom says. Baby Lily loves it.

How pleasing to know that this is a little girl being brought up not to fear the elements, not to shrink away and retreat only to the comfort of the indoors but to get out and enjoy.

Baby Lily may be well on her way to be coming a true Alaska girl.

As usual, at 4:00 PM I headed to Metro Cafe to get my coffee. After Shoshauna prepared it for me, I did not go home or take my usual drive, but continued on, with Anchorage as my destination. My friend, Larry Aiken, had experienced a couple of very hard days in his cancer treatment and I knew it was time to visit him again.

When I reached the Junction of the Parks and Palmer-Wasilla Highways, I was pleased to be stopped by a red light, so that I could pause, compose, and shoot.

As I crossed the Hay Flats, I heard a text message come in on my phone. I pulled off the highway at the next exit - the Native Village of Eklutna - to read it. It was from Lavina. She was out with Kalib and Jobe and they were going to pick up a pizza.

She invited me to stop by to have some.

Only Jacob was home when I arrived, but soon we heard Lavina, Kalib and Jobe pull into the driveway.

Remember how, at Thanksgiving, I told you that Kalib had become attached to a spatula, that he kept it with him almost at all times and that it had become his favorite toy?

He entered the living room carrying that spatula. Even as his mother removed his sweater, he kept hold of that spatula. 

When it was time to eat the pizzas, Kalib proved that the spatula was more than a toy to him, but a tool as well.

He wielded that tool well.

Jobe's not really into pizza yet, but he does love his dehydrated fruity yogurt treats - as do I. Knowing full well the danger, his dad handed me the bag so that I could feed him.

I gave him one. I would have given him more, but he ate too damn slow. What is one to do when he is holding the yogurt treats and the baby is eating too slow but to eat yogurt treats himself?

Then I went to see Larry and we had a good visit. It is one of those terrible ironies of life, but to kill cancer, one must undergo treatment that will make him very sick and so the past few days had been hard for Larry.

To help get him through, Larry has continued on his art work. He showed me this little beluga painting that is nearing completion. It is of the belugas as they appear under water. Larry has never been under the water with the belugas, but they came to him in a dream and showed him how they look under there.

So he is painting that dream.

Readers who were with me then will recall how shortly after Larry arrived in Anchorage to begin his treatment, he began a self-portrait of himself harpooning a bowhead whale. His whaling captain, George Adams, was right behind, ready to follow up with the shoulder gun. Last night, Larry told me the story of that whale.

He is not quite done with the self-portrait, yet, but as you can see, it is moving along. Once the portrait is done, I will take another photo and will pass on the story as Larry told it to me.

His art is his therapy.

He also finds therapy in the support, prayers and love of friends and family.

These are the things that get him through each day. 

And I found therapy in Larry's company - and in the hug that he gave me just before we parted company. There was fear in that hug, but hope and strength even more so.

Now I will take you back to India, for just a flash:

Regarding my ongoing process of grief for Soundarya - grief that seems not to ease but only to intensify - this is how I have decided to handle it in this blog. From now until however long it takes me to sort through, edit and create some sort of picture package from the images that I took of her, Anil and of India, I am going to keep that take at the forerfront of my Lightroom editor. I will work on it when I can.

Now and then, at times with more frequency than others, I will drop random pictures from India into this blog. Until I finish, these will not be pictures of Soundarya, but of other people and things in India, the place that made her.

When you see those pictures, even if I do not mention her name, you will be reminded of her, and you will know that I am thinking of her.

I start with this set of three only because they were the ones visible on the front page of my editor at the moment I decided to do this.

I took these during an interim moment. Sandy and Anil were off being newlyweds, Melanie and I had made a big trip with Vasanthi and Vijay and were about to take another with Vasanthi, Murthy and Buddy. In the meantime, Melanie and I took a walk from the Murthy home and soon got caught in a sudden downpour.

Some fruit vendors invited us to take shelter with them.

We did. The rain was furious, but brief.

When it ended, we said goodbye as best we could to these vendors, who spoke little English, and then moved on.

Very soon, we came across this young boy.

And then this one. I would have taken more pictures of people that we encountered after the rain, but after I shot this one, my Canon 5D Mark II, which I had protected from all but a few drops of rain, shut down on me and would not shoot again until I sent it into Canon for a $350 repair job.

As I do not like to carry it, I had almost left my Canon 1Ds Mark III at home, but at the last moment had decided to bring it. This proved to be a very good thing because otherwise, I would have been out of action from this moment forward.

Well... probably not... I would have acquired some kind of camera in India.

The Valley of the Shadow...

As readers know, despite my own, very intense, and at least from my mother very sincere, religious upbringing, despite the fact that I associate closely with many people of deep religious faith, I am not a person of faith myself. Yet, from the time I woke up this morning until right now, a certain scripture has kept repeating itself in my head.

It is a most important scripture to me personally and I also think the King James version of it to be among the most beautiful words ever put together in the English language.

It speaks of a valley, a valley that we all must walk through for each and every second that we live. At times, we are acutely aware that we walk in this valley, other times, our minds push all thoughts and fears of it to the side and we just laugh, enjoy, make merry and do what we feel like doing.

But sooner or later, that valley always manifests itself about us and makes certain we know we walk there.

Yet, somehow, this scripture makes that valley appear less frightening:

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.

He maketh me to lie down in green pastures:

he leadeth me beside the still waters.

He restoreth my soul:

he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, 

I will fear no evil, for thou art with me;

thy rod and thy staff comfort me.

Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies:

thou anointest my head with oil;

my cup runneth over.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life:

and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. 

These words come from the Judeo-Christian Bible, but I have felt the feeling behind them in the contexts of many different faiths - yes, even in the Mormon faith that I grew up with but can no longer be shackled by. I feel it in the churches whenever I gather with my Iñupiat and other Native friends and they sing so beautifully, with such strong heart and deep spirit.

I have felt it in a tipi, with a fire burning hot in the center, surrounded by drums and singing on the rim of the circle. I have felt it in a sweat lodge where spiritual beliefs that predate the United States but not the original people of this land have made themselves manifest.

And yes, I have felt it in a Hindu temple when a holy man has spoken words that I do not understand and has reached out and touched me on the forehead and left a red mark there - and among Muslims, who have invited me to come in off the Bangalore street and into their butcher shop, with carcasses suspended from the ceiling, there to share their coffee and spirit with me.

I have felt it among those sincere in many faiths when they have reached out with that faith to soothe and support others.

I do not necessarily feel it from those - again in any and all faiths - who would use their religion as a club to smash down and subdue others.

But among the sincere, hurt and caring, I have felt such comfort across the gamut. I gratefully accept all of their prayers and blessings.

*That's zero degrees F; - 18 C.

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