The following video is not meant to be something morbid. Although, I am certain many people will take it as being highly inappropriate. Really, the photographing and filming of this young woman's funeral was an act of love. Love for her Aunt and love for the at risk youth in our world. The decision of her aunt and her aunts friend to prepare her body for the funeral was also an act of love. I find nothing morbid about it, except perhaps our own morbid fears. Death is a part of life that we tend to sweep under the rug. No one wants to face death, to think about it...just as we do not want to consider the death that occurs in war, or the homeless people on our streets, or the children being neglected and abused, or people suffering from poverty and hunger. We think, if I do not see it, it does not exist, not for me. If we do not accept that these things exist, we will never have the power to effect positive change in the world.

For me, the death of this young woman is a representation of the untold numbers of children who are born without a chance. Her death was not due to disease, natural disaster, suicide or a freak accident. Her death was due to the choices she made in life, to the people she surrounded herself with. Choices that, considering her circumstances, I do not blame her for making.

For as long as we continue to turn a blind eye, the more our society will be scattered with such shattered youth.