Happy Birthday mom, you have brought so much happiness and care into our lives. You are one of the best people and mothers anyone can ever have or ever know. Life is a brighter and more hopeful place from your love, intellect, and presence. We are so blessed to have you here. 💕💕💖

My mom at her desk when we use to work at Union Theological Seminary library in 2003 (which is now formally part of Columbia University together) though she obviously had the bigger job and I used to catalog by hand old sermon pamphlets, handwritten cataloging. A nice time in a difficult moment in our lives. I always regret not taking more pictures of the place. That's a big part of being a photographer the regrets of the moments you didn't collect and/or better images of the fragments you did. That's probably much different now for many with the age of smart phones.

 

Happy Birthday mom, I could watch you paint every day and be excited about what you are excited to conjure outside yourself. That creating art forces us to move closer to being in touch with the world outside ourselves. In our corner of the universe you are one of the brightest parts of the toughness and bravery that is has taken to live our lives. Still laughing and still curious and still sensitive and still loving and still finding purpose and still finding meaning and believing it all has meaning.

 

Union Theological Seminary library