The One That Stands Out

I was thinking about all the pictures I’ve taken over this year. We traveled quite a bit, and we visited some amazing places with some wonderful people. I even upgraded my camera gear for the first time in six years, which gave me plenty of opportunities to create pictures I hadn’t been able to before.

I started wondering which picture — if I had to choose just one — would be my favorite from 2016. Out of the thousands and thousands of moments, which means the most to me today?

Definitely, without a doubt, this one:

It was the closest that cancer had ever felt, and it came in the form of a brain tumor in my best friends’ seven-month-old daughter. My wife and I live in Ukraine, but we were in the States when we got the news. We flew back immediately to be there for the surgery, something the doctors were not convinced she would live through.

This picture was taken after that first surgery when emotions were all over the place. We waited hours at a time for tiny pieces of information. It was here when the doctor called them out to hear some frustrating news.

I took this picture with my iPhone 5C. I had my nicer camera with me, but it was too much at that particular moment. The light was terrible, but I couldn’t miss the moment. I’m so glad I didn’t. Out of the thousands and thousands of photographs I took this year, this one pulls at my heart and at my memory the most. Some of the best people in the world going through the worst together.

And today—ten months after this moment — this picture stands as a reminder of how good God has been through it all. That little seventh-month-old is now seventeen months old. Even though she’s not completely out of the woods yet, her story has touched literally thousands of people all around the world.