Sarah was in dire straights. She needed an organ transplant. She was waiting and it was agony to wait.

An organ became available and she had the operation that continued her life.

She reached out to the family of the organ donor. It was a family was Amish. Their nine year old daughter had passed. And Sarah had received her organ.

Sarah asked for a picture of the little girl. The Amish parents explained that they don't have pictures of themselves or their family members. It is not a part of what they do or who they are.

BUT

There is a picture that exists of their daughter because an "English" man travels the countryside taking pictures and there is one of their family on a hay wagon. Their daughter is on top of the hay. People have seen the picture in "The Blue Gate" restaurant gift shop area.

... but here is the rest of the story... as if there needed to be more.

I am the person who is credited with taking the picture. In fact my nephew was in the car and he had expressed interest in photography and I was trying to encourage him. So durning his and his wife's visit I gave him the camera as we drove around. He took this picture. His name is Pablo. I likely would never have taken this picture as I try to avoid capturing the faces of people and this one clearly has people's faces. Having said that I did post it on my web site and "The Blue Gare" ordered it as plaques for their wall.

It was first thought that the Amish family learned about this picture from folks seeing it at "The Blue Gate", but that isn't how it happened.

The company that makes the plaques is Amish. They saw the print come through their shop. As it happens from time to time a print gets damaged and a new one needs to be ordered. They had a damaged print that they cropped and secreted it into their neighbors' (the family that lost their daughter) house. They didn't just hand them the picture but left it in their house where it would be found.

It was. That is how they came to learn of the existence of a picture of their daughter who had passed.

Here is the picture...

amish family and hay 20150604 _DSC8216 no effects copy 2Photo by David Arment