A Haunting Story - The Julie Project.

I don't normally do a post about another blog post, but right now I can't help myself. I came across this on today's post at kottke.org (ASIDE: don't ask me what Jason Kottke's website is about. I can't explain it. All I know is that I'm addicted to it like a slice of cherry cheesecake infused with crack. Ahem.)

And now I can't stop thinking about Julie. Her life, her children - oh, her precious babes. I can't get them out of my head. You have to read this, and tell me it's not haunting. Riveting, too...but mostly an incredibly moving and heartbreaking story of a woman and mother.

The piece, Entitled The Julie Project, is a series of photos taken over eighteen years by photographer Darcy Padilla. She first met Julie Baird in 1993 as a new mother with an eight day-old infant in her arms. She was HIV positive and nearly homeless. The rest of the body of work speaks for itself, and Padilla says this in her final statement:

"Julie’s story matters and should make a difference to us the viewer in our understanding of the fractured world that many poor people struggle to exist in...I hope you can’t stop thinking about Julie’s story, I hope it makes you feel. I hope it makes you look at the world differently."

It certainly did for me.

(Special thanks to Darcy Padilla, Jason Kottke, and Heather Armstrong of dooce.com)