The penultimate day

(Edited: Callum under the weather today.. ah well, up til 12am editing school shoots, Jason's cakes flopped without raising agent, so...graduation another day)

A little clearer large, if only for Helen Keller's famous quote.

Three more family and teacher shoots today after school super quick. This is Dane, Director of the Intervention Programme. So much have I learnt from her over the last 18 months and how I fondly look back to the day, days before Callum was born, when I first stood in the play yard with Reuben and just knew that this is where I wanted us to be. Upon discovering I'd left my phone at school whilst on the road home, I raced back, hurriedly ran in whilst illegally parking, so she could watch my car. And after that I thought, what better time than to take pics, whilst you're mid lunch! Construction site in the background, a shallow DoF and we could have been anywhere! I've decided to do a framed collage in the new parent room of everyone I've managed to capture during these last few weeks, about 20 families and teachers. Any ideas how best creatively to frame?

My mind drifts back to your first days at UCLA. Unable to walk unassisted, no ability to move your vocal chords and sound a word, cry or laugh, in terms of what you have achieved, it feels like a lifetime away. And yet did I envisage you walking, talking, laughing, climbing, jumping. I had my high hopes, I knew there was an Everest to climb and at times the peak kept cruelly being displaced, higher and higher, so it felt like we would never reach the summit, and yet today, on your penultimate day at UCLA, we can stand with the flag waving and look down to the peaks and troughs, the deep canyons and joyous crests and truly marvel at what lies below us. It's a beautiful view.

I started out fairly calmly, but then realising during Circle Time that this would be the last time we would sing "Reuben came to play today...", I couldn't control the rush of tears. I didn't manage to sing this song to you a final time Reuben (tomorrow we are only in for graduation); only my fingers could do the talking in sign in respect of a little wobbly chin and stiffled chords.

An account of one of your first days at UCLA in January 2009.

And yesterday's back blip.