The story is no longer unique. It's as tired as the seat of my favorite blue jeans. Abuse - Adoption - Molestation - Irreconciliation. And yet...it was a unique opportunity I had to photograph this wedding...to discover that two broken families had made their way back to each other.
When the bride was five years old, her family attended my church. Her father, Jack, had a brother....Sam. I became very good friends with Sam and his wife. Through the course of our friendship I discovered that, like myself, Sam was also adopted. He CHOSE to be adopted. When they were in high school, Jack and Sam were best friends. Sam's mother was a beast....a wretched woman who abused him in many ways. Jack's family offered to adopt him, and Jack took their name. They took him in as their own son, and two kids who always felt like brothers, now were. Sam and Jack both fell in love with beautiful women and had beautiful sons and daughters. The two families were very close, spending holidays together, vacations and daily interactions.
When Jack's daughter was five, Sam's son babysat her. They were alone. He molested her. The family broke apart. The son was labeled, the daughter was broken. The friends, turned brothers, became nothing...as dead as if they had died. Sam was no longer considered family for a myriad of complicated reasons. It was sad to watch. A decade went by with little or no contact other than police and attorney's and whatnot. Anyway, that's as short as I can make a long story. Eventually there was a hand out, and a hand receptive, and the two families started speaking again.
Saturday, Jack's daughter got married. Sam and his wife attended. Sam's daughter photographed the wedding with me. I am immensely happy for this bride, that on this day she is reconciled and the brothers are reconciled. Jack's son is absent, but that's not really the point.
Healing is possible.
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