A balm for grief

Thanks to volunteer photographers, parents have keepsakes to remember babies whose lives ended much too soon

By Barbara Bradley
barbarabradley@commercialappeal.com
July 29, 2007

Photographer Marci Lambert volunteered for an assignment she hoped would never come. But in June she was asked to do a portrait shoot at Methodist North Hospital. The subject was a 3-month-old baby girl who had died of an infection.

"You have to think deep in your heart if you can do this," said Lambert, 43, of East Memphis. That was especially true in this case, which took another devastating turn.

Lambert is one of five photographers in this area who have volunteered to shoot bereavement photos through a nonprofit organization called Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep, headquartered in Littleton, Colo., near Denver. It was founded two years ago by Cheryl Haggard, a mother who lost her infant son, and Sandy Puc, the nationally acclaimed photographer who photographed him. It has spread rapidly to every state and to eight other countries.

"Society doesn't know how to deal with the death of a baby," said Haggard of Evergreen, Colo., whose son Maddux lived only six days. "They think you did not get to know this baby. They want you to forget." More