Jazz & Sidney, flower and fruit anniversary
Oh Jazzlyn and Syndey, you give me all the feels. One of the feelings is gratitude.
Gratitude that you re-connected with me, gratitude that you found each other, and for Max, and that, simply put, gratitude you two are so darn cool.
Jazzlyn was one of the first children I photographed for You Are Not Alone, when I started volunteering with them to create photo libraries. Jazzlyn’s mom was on the board of directors and Jazzlyn was fighting illness and spending much of her childhood in hospitals.
After high school, Jazzlyn headed to Eastern Canada for high school. She was pursuing a rigorous academic path. While at university, Jazzlyn and Sydney became roommates and best friends. Unfortunately, Jazzlyn got sick again and decided she would have better care in BC.
On December 26th, 2017, Jazzlyn was scheduled for major surgery for colon cancer, and she didn’t know if she would survive and if she did, what her quality of life would be. She knew that she could live with her disabilities happily, however, if she became palliative she would want to consider medical assisted dying, and if she were put on life support, she would want to terminate her life. It was decided that her parents wouldn’t be the right people to help make this big decision and the ideal person was Sydney, who moved out to BC.
Although they were just platonic, they decided to get married so that Syndey could best support Jazzlyn’s end-of-life plans. So on Dec 24th, two days before Jazzlyn’s surgery, they were married in a simple legal ceremony.
There were complications in the surgery, that resulted in many months in the hospital and health challenges that Jazzlyn has to navigate and live with regularly. However, as she said “I am alive, and I enjoy my life,” and Sydney is now a bigger part of that - because they fell in love.
They are truly wild about each other and have built, along with Jazzlyn’s service dog Max, have built a beautiful life together.
They look at each other with wonder (when they are not looking at Max), and it is clear they live in adoration of each other and make an amazing team. Jazzlyn doesn't hesitate to express how thoughtful, compassionate, kind, beautiful and intelligent Syndey is, and Sydney clearly is amazed by Jazzlyns wisdom, emotional strength and sense of humor. You can tell they both feel like they are the luckiest.
In December 2017 I was at the Kingfisher Resort & Spa photographing, and Jazzlyn and Sydney were there enjoying a spa experience they had recently won in a contest. Jazzlyn knew who I was and came and said hello, which was so lovely. I remember it well.
She reached out to me last year saying she wanted to gift Sydney a photo session for their engagement - so we prepped a gift card for Syndey and put a session on the calendar for when the weather would be better.
Each year, Sydney and Jazzlyn celebrate their anniversary by honouring each other with a traditional anniversary gift. Year one was paper, year two was fibre, year three leather and year four flowers and fruit. Because we couldn’t guarantee when the flowers would bloom (hello crazy weather this year) and we wanted an accessible location, Sydney and Jazzlyn got to work creating flower crowns and putting together some props, which made the session more special.
I honestly can’t get over how smart these two are - academically and socially and how much we laughed together. This session really spotlighted what this “photo business life” is about for me.
Honouring and sharing love and differences, living in acceptance of others, knowing life is hard but that if we can grab on to slivers of beauty it can soften some of the hard edges, and that laughter is key to survival. Thanks, Jazz and Sydney - forever in your corner and available to share musical tidbits, quirky show recommendations and to talk community and inclusion.
You three have very special hearts.
