The warrior is within her, she will not fall.
A day will come when we lose, but it's not today. Today we fight. Like a warrior!!
This mom will start chemo in 2 weeks, instead of allowing herself to drown in sadness and complaints, she wanted to try all the hairstyles that she never had a chance to try before she loses her hair. I am in awe of her bravery, optimism, sense of humor and the unquenchable desire for life.
I had the privilege to photograph this woman, a mother, a warrior, a miracle, a testimony of laughing at the face of death. Can't wait to see her transform, and I am incredibly honored and grateful to have met her.
How it started -
I saw her post on Facebook asking for a reasonable priced hair salon because she will be doing a few haircuts in stages, I reached out and invited her to come do a studio session with me. Thank God she agreed!
As we were talking about preparing the photoshoot, I told her my vision of seeing her as a woman warrior fighting this nasty disease, she told me she loved the idea and wanted to bring a sword!
She showed up that day, in a fabulous green 2 door jeep, which is an old jeep her father (a 4 times cancer survivor) bought after he found out his first cancer, and sold to her later on, and she sold to her cousin and then bought it back just weeks before finding out her own cancer! - she gave the jeep a beautiful name, Samantha, the same name that her father gave her as nickname to tease her and enjoyed her annoyance every time he called her that. "It's not my name!" She protested every time with her face all red.
Anyway, she came to me, with her beautiful little Samantha, with her sword, ready to slay. She brought with her this beautiful Indian fabric - it's a Saree that her MIL bought from India. We obviously didn't know how to wrap it around her the proper way, but we both wanted so bad to give this piece of gorgeous fabric the respect and appreciation it deserved, so I hung it up as a backdrop, and Voila! It was meant to be there. The color, the texture, the pattern, it was supposed to be there behind her. Like a mountain full of fire horses and chariots made of the overwhelming love and support from her families and friends.
This lady is going to fight a long hard fight, and she's gonna win.
I want to see her again, after all the treatments are done, I want to see her, with her 2 beautiful boys and her husband, in studio, or in the woods, in this world, in the sun, laughing, dancing, talking about how much they love each other, I cannot wait.
