Looking Ever Forward...

Last year, I don't really remember when, I wrote an essay about portraits and candid photo's...

At the time I wrote that sentiment, I remembered thinking about friendships, about those I love, and all the people who have gone missing from my life. Many of those departures were unexpected and tragic.

Considering the many photographs that I've collected over the years, all the visitors who've spent time at the ranch, and all those whose trails have crossed mine, it seemed strange how many folks would meet a premature end.

In nearly all of those images, our faces seemed so shining, looking forward, toward a horizon that we could not see. In these pictures, I felt a simple image defined a perfect moment, one suspended in time. In our innocent gaze, looking ever toward a future none of us could know, we held at bay a tomorrow that none of us could predict the outcome of.

Yet we faced straight ahead, embracing the next instance with courage and resolve, but always, in the act of creating that record of history, we also accepted that our final destination must remain unknown.

If there is grace, it must be that the fleeting moments captured by the lense of camera tell us nothing of what is to come. We smile, gathering hands, void of any knowledge of the rest of the story.

This past weekend, that reality hit home once again.

The woman pictured above in the pink tank top is a young woman named Malinda Newman. At the time this picture was taken last July, she was dating my cousin Mike who is shown standing next to her. The one and only time I met Malinda she impressed me as shy and quiet.

A little over a week ago, Malinda's vehicle was found in the Pend Oreille River. She'd left Ione and was bound for Metaline, but somehow missed a curve and plunged nearly 400 feet into the river. At the time the river was at or near flood stage. The night she disappeared it was raining heavily.

For days, friends and local search & rescue groups scoured the river banks looking for her. Recent reports citing the recovery of her remains were premature. Malinda was 24 years old at the time of her disappearance. The two young girls pictured in this photo are her daughters, Kelcy and Rachel. She is also survived by her son, who is the youngest of her three children. Please keep them and the rest of Malinda's family in your prayers.

A final thought~

I found this on a tombstone, in an old abandoned graveyard in Oregon many years ago...the sentiment is one of the few things I've never been able to forget...it seems appropriate tonight...

Remember Living Man
As You Pass By...
That you are now...
As once was I...