How one family's loss is changing my perspective

Let me start of by saying THANK YOU! To all of your sweet compliments about my first engagement shoot. I was not expecting that kind of response and it truly made my week!

The beautiful couple loved them and even asked if I do weddings but I'm way WAY too scared to photograph such an important day right now. But it's giving me something to think about and explore in the future. Photography has been a part-time passion of mine but I'm beginning to wonder if I can or should make it something more.

My JOB job also gave me something to think about this past week. I was feeling uninspired. Sucky. Worthless. Not completely worthless, but just questioning what I'm doing day in and day out, and if I am really making an impact. Where I am and where I saw myself being at this point isn't exactly coinciding. I was having a "woe is me" moment.

Then, I did two stories that changed my outlook.

A couple of years ago, I read this Washington Post article about a fatal distraction--Parents who forgot their children in their cars on the way to work. Their children died and they have to live with that guilt and pain the rest of their lives. So many people read stories like that and get accusatory "how could you forget?" "I'd never do that!" "What horrible parents!" but I had the opposite approach thinking it could happen to me. It could happen to anyone, but I want to do what I can so it doesn't.

Earlier this year I started a parenting segment at my news station, and doing a story on this issue has been on my mind from the start. I just needed the right elements.

As the temperatures warmed up the story nagged from the back of my mind.

I did a little research and found a family who had a little girl about my daughter's age, and lost her last year after a hot car death. They speak openly about it so that they can prevent it from happening to someone else.

When I went to their house and listened to them tell me their story, I fought back tears, and I lost to a few of them.

I won't pretend to know how it feels to experience what they felt. But as I listened to the father describe blacking out after realizing what had happened, the mother sharing the horror she felt when she found her daughter, still barely alive, I tried to imagine myself in their shoes. And just pretending to be in their shoes gave me a horrible sinking feeling.

I nearly cried while writing and editing the story as well. The most heartbreaking part to me was when Brett, the dad, talks about the ducks in the pond that were his daughters, and even though they have trouble floating, he can't bear to take them out because they are the original ducks that belonged to Sophia.

You can read more about their story and mission at RayRaysPledge.com.

Here's the story if you'd like to see it, and get a glimpse of my "day job" and see one of the most important stories I've done in my career.

Later that day I interviewed a young man, only 29, who was on top of the world last year, and while diving into his pool, he slipped and broke his neck. He also brought me to tears. I couldn't help but think about something like this happening to my husband, or myself. You can watch that story here.

This week truly made me stop, count my blessings, and realize I have so much to be thankful for.