When a family comes to you for the second year for photographs, two thoughts just may pass your mind.  The first being a humbled gratefulness that you were given another opportunity to embrace this family’s journey in one of the best ways you know how.  The second perhaps being, what has this year brought?  For it didn’t take long for another autumn to woo us with reflections of a year gone by.  Surely you remember this year.  Celebration, perhaps.  Moments of discouragement.  Hardships you least expected, joys you could have only hoped for.  You remember all of it, but reflection is not meant to stop at mere memory.  What, rather, has this year brought?  Did the joys bring gratefulness or yearnings for more?  Did grief have you understanding more deeply all that which really takes precedence, or prompted you only to  grasp onto life more desperately?  Did the changing year change you with it, or simply give way to further hustle and bitterness?  One year may be brief in the span of a lifetime, and far briefer still in the span of creation, yet much can be lost in so short a period of time, just as much can be gained.