October is Breast Caner Awareness Month...

This is Robin.  Last year I photographed Robin and her family just before the holidays.  We are similar in so many ways - we even live just a few blocks from each other we found out.  Like me, she is a mother of 2 small, darling children.  Like me, we are both in the "upper end" of our 30's.  Like me, she has a loving husband, a beautiful home, great friends, a caring family, a job she loves, and children she treasures.  Two months ago Robin was diagnosed with breast cancer.  No family history.  No clues leading up to it.  Just an unexplained lump, and then her world crashing in on her.  Robin has asked me, entrusted me, with taking portraits of her before and after her mastectomy surgery.  The images below she has given me permission to share.  They were taken just 4 days before her surgery.  We spent a little over an hour together in her home - there was laughter and tears and frustration.  And in that time I saw her strength building, and her spirit ready to fight.  

Robin is now recovering, slowly, from that surgery and another unexpected one.  She will be starting treatment soon.  She has asked me to document that as well.  I think of Robin on a daily basis now.  How her world was rocked.  How her life and her family's life was dramatically changed in a moment.  And how 1 in 8 women will be diagnosed with this disease.  How real that is.  Both of my grandmothers were breast cancer survivors, and I know Robin will be as well.  She has a strength that she is just now discovering, and that is redefining who she is.  Thank you Robin for letting me into this very difficult and private journey.  You are an inspiration to me and to all women.