Here’s the first in a long overdue update with work from the past month. Speaking of the past month, I don’t know where it’s gone, and hopefully this the following couple of recaps will help explain that. I feel like I’ve gotten some new wings over the course of the last several weeks, a bunch of stuff has really clicked photographically. One of those clicks was covering a vigil for a boy named Ethan Stacy.
Ethan was in Utah with his mother and her new husband on a custody agreement that placed him with his mother for the summer and his father (who lives out of state) the rest of the year. He was reported missing a few weeks ago and the investigation quickly turned in to a search for the boy’s remains. His mother and her husband were arrested on charges of murder in what turned out to be a grim and painful story of abuse and neglect. The outpouring of mourners, many of whom never met Ethan or any of his family, was incredible.
This vigil was on the second or third night after Ethan’s body was found, and many of the media folks there to cover it (yours truly among them) were surprised at the turnout. Several hundred people, some from the surrounding apartments and others who traveled from out of town, gathered in the courtyard to shed tears in memory of a boy many of them never knew.
Covering emotionally charged, mournful events is difficult, but everyone I met that night was open to talk. It was a moving night: I’m thankful for being raised in a loving and supportive family, and the overwhelming feeling of common loss suggests that we have the capacity to connect with others on an incredibly deep level.
