Dear family, friends and neighbors,

It's been an eventful 2009 year end. Many of you reading this are aware that the week before Thanksgiving I received some devastating news.  We're all a phone call away from our worlds being shaken--being violently shoved out of our comfort zones of healthy bodies, material possessions, loved ones; only forced to quickly reorient ourselves in the new foreign circumstances.  I got that call.

"Fred, I hate to be the one to tell you this. You're apartment building caught fire this morning and we believe it's a total loss...I'm so sorry."

For 20 minutes my world stood still.  All sound left.  People were talking but only mouths were moving.  The liberty of throwing up, crumbling into a million pieces or simply being absorbed in a state of shock wasn't afforded me.  I was 130 miles from home shooting a job, surrounded by people I had just met the night before.

I immediately climbed my apartment stairs to find, by the grace of God, that my office (housing everything involved in running my business) had been spared from being burned.  It was the room furthest from the origin of the apartment building fire.  The good news was that I could still work.  The bad...most everything else was gone.

My online avatar has been largely vacant over the past two months as I've reflected on loss, compassion, and the recoil that comes with being emotionally stretched beyond what you think you can bear.  I'll come out again, I promise.  I lost almost everything I owned five years ago in my divorce.  The experience stretched me emotionally, spiritually and mentally.  What made this time around easier to cope with was you guys.  Friends.  So much more valuable than most of us take time to realize. 

Thank you Jory Cordy (and your sweet wife Valerie) for being a good friend.  You took the initiative in helping me out immediately.  You didn't take time to think about how many hours of your life you'd lose in doing so, how many emails you'd have to correspond with, how many comments you'd have to moderate...you just did it.  I love you.

All my friends within the wedding/portrait photographic community, thank you.  I realized exactly how great this community is that we belong to.  There are truly too many of you to thank individually (and some of you I haven't even met yet).  Please let this suffice.

My family, you are my strength.  Mom, dad, brother, sister, sons...I love you very much.

And for those of you that I don't have the pleasure of knowing, you blew me away...nothing was expected of you yet you gave generously of yourselves.  For that, I am so thankful.

Thank you friends for your compassion and charity, from the bottom of my heart. I am truly blessed.