Reminders of life

Parents cherish photos of babies gone too soon

The family just moved in, so the house isn't in shape quite yet.

Bits of old glue on the living-room floors show where the carpet was pulled up so the hardwoods can be refinished. Clutter waits beyond the closed doors of the other rooms, as do children.

Despite the chaos of moving five kids into a new home, there is a spot in the living room that is immaculate. On a small table, near the front door, memories already have been neatly arranged.

The space is packed with photos in standing frames, positioned precisely so that the pictures on each side of the table are angled gently toward the center. There is a photo of Mom and Dad at Christmastime. There's Mom, with her daughter, Libby, for Mother's Day.

And there is a picture, in somber black-and-white, of Dad holding the twins, Brady and Tucker, close to his chest, just weeks after they were born.

Tucker was gone by the time they were taken. She lived 18 days.

"It always reminds you of how precious life is," says the mom, Morgan Lutche, about the pictures of her twins. "Some days I look at them and it reminds me of what I don't have. And then some days I can look at them and it reminds me of what I'm thankful for."

For memory's sake, Morgan took snapshots of her daughter, accompanied by the tubes and wires that worked to keep her alive. It wasn't until after Tucker died that Morgan and Mike could hold her, unshackled from medicine, and that more beautiful photographs could be taken.

A professional photographer posed Tucker and her brother wrapped in blankets and placed next to each other. Aimee Bickers photographed Tucker clutching an artificial rose that her dad had purchased in the hospital gift shop, and she took pictures of him holding her in one hand.

Bickers is a volunteer with an organization called Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep, a group of professional photographers who volunteer their time to make memories for moms and dads with children in dire medical circumstances. Most of these children have passed away.

For another photo, Brady and Tucker were placed on their sides, facing the camera. Brady is behind his sister, his tiny hand on her lifeless shoulder. There is plenty of life in the photo, though, as Brady's eyes are wide open. He's watching over her.

For Morgan, it's almost as though Bickers saw Tucker through God's eyes. A CD containing the digital images is so important to her that she keeps it in a fire safe.

"I show them to anybody who comes in my home. If I have them out in my car, I show them. I'm very proud and I like for people to see them."

The pictures, she says, provide memories that will last forever. When Brady gets older, he will have photographs that show him and his sister together.

"I just hope that Brady is proud of his sister and that he understands they were close, and that she loved him."

Photographers volunteer

The pregnancy, her third, was not easy. By the time Morgan was 26 weeks along, she had already checked into Duke University Hospital, with orders to rest.

For Morgan and her husband, Mike Dunn, these children would add to the already lively and numerous bunch that their blended family had become. Named before their birth, Tucker, a girl, and Brady, a boy, would mean six kids at home.

The twins spent 31 weeks in the womb before they were born on March 30, 2007. She weighed 2 pounds, 6 ounces. He weighed 3 pounds, 4 ounces.

Immediately, doctors realized that Tucker was not well. Born with an underdeveloped lung, she could not breathe on her own.

Hospital staff members presented Morgan and Mike with the option of having her portrait taken.