Featured Image: Son Cradling Elderly Mother

“Unconditional love is hard to compete with.”
― Abbi Glines

 

1. “Rana and Sommayeh”

Sommayeh Mehri’s husband poured a bucket of acid over his wife and daughter Rana while they slept. Sommayeh is now fighting to keep her child feeling ‘normal’. 

“[Sommayeh’s] main concern remains treatment for her daughter Rana. ‘She doesn’t understand yet what has happened to her,’ Mehri told an Iranian news agency. “That’s why she’s still playful and happy. But with one emptied-out eye and a burned face, how can she live among her friends and others? This is my great sorrow.” –Time Lightbox

 

2. “Wealth Gap”

One mother works on the side of the street as a shoe shiner/polisher and wears her baby on her back during work hours. Another mother uses the woman’s service to polish her son’s shoes.

 

3. “The First Meeting”

Soldier meets his daughter for the first time.

 

4.  Son and Alcoholic Father

 

5. Two-Year-Old Offers Food to Disabled Mother

“Two-year old child Vaishnavi feeding her mother Sangeeta, during the second National Convention on ‘Children’s Right to Food’ in Bhopal, India. Sangeeta, a construction labour, lost both her hands in an accident during construction of a building at Multai township in Madhya Pradesh in 2001.”- Source

 

6. Iraqi Prisoner of War Comforts 4-Year-Old Son

“An Iraqi man comforts his four-year-old son at a holding center for prisoners of war, in the base camp of the US Army 101st Airborne Division near An Najaf. The boy had become terrified when, according to orders, his father was hooded and handcuffed. A soldier later severed the plastic handcuffs so that the man could comfort his child. Hoods were placed over detainees’ heads because they were quicker to apply than blindfolds. The military said the bags were used to disorient prisoners and protect their identities. It is not known what happened to the man or the boy.” –Source

 

7. Son Mourns While Clutching Dead Father’s Trousers

“A boy holds his dead father’s trousers as he squats beside the spot where his father is to be buried, surrounded by soldiers and villagers digging graves for victims of an earthquake in Armenia.”-Source

 

8. WWII Prisoner Reunited with Daughter

“A German World War II prisoner, released by the Soviet Union, is reunited with his daughter. The child had not seen her father since she was one year old.” –Source

 

9. Dying Woman Breastfeeds Baby

“A dying Rwandan woman tries breastfeeding her child next to hundreds of corpses waiting to be buried at a mass grave near the Munigi refugee camp, 20 km north of Goma. Thousands of refugees were succumbing to cholera or dehydration, July 23, 1994.” –Source

 

10. Father and 25-Year-Old ‘Special Needs’ Daughter’s Nightly Routine

The father in this photo works full-time job, and everyday, he comes home and works diligently on his other full-time job – caretaker to his 25-year-old special needs daughter. They eat dinner in this big chair in front of the T.V. and fall asleep together every night. –Source

 

11. Father and Son Relationship in 1949, 2009, and 2011

 

12. Terminally Ill Mother Watches Daughter’s Wedding Over Skype

 

13. Daughter Holds Hands with Deported Mother through Border Fence

25-year-old Renata Teodoro holds hands with her mother, Gorete Borges Teodoro, through the bars of a border fence in Nogales, Arizona. Her mother was deported six years ago from the U.S. –Source

 

14. “Mother’s Pride and Joy”

‘Tomoko in Her Bath’- Mother bathes daughter with Minamata Disease.

 

15. Guilt Ridden Father Tries To Save Dying Son

About the Photographer:

For John, powerful images are meaningless unless he feels he’s preserved his subjects’ dignity. In 1984, while at a feeding center in famine-ridden Ethiopia, he saw a woman who’d collapsed near a dilapidated building to give birth. The woman had passed out naked, the baby still attached to her. Knowing Ethiopians to be modest, John covered her up and ran to find medical aid. By the time he got back, a British television crew was hovering and the cameraman was ready to slug him. “He was pissed that I ruined this Pulitzer Prize-winning shot,” John says. His voice quivers as he remembers his mother’s advice: “Human dignity is more important than Pulitzer Prize-winning.”–Source

16. Despair

Father Jihad Masharawi weeps in utter despair while he holds the body of his 11-month old son Omar.

 

17. Father Wearing His Infant while Receiving Aid

Father and Orang Asli villager receiving aid in Gua Musang, Kelantan.

 

18. The Embrace of Life

This image shows the moment when Kate and David Ogg were handed their lifeless preemie infant to say their goodbyes. After doctors had worked tirelessly to save the infant just moments after his delivery, they heartbreakingly could not find any signs of life. When Kate was handed Jamie, she held him at her chest with skin-to-skin contact. The same infant, who was pronounced dead just moments earlier by an entire medical team, began to breathe. Doctors told the Oggs not to get their hopes up, because what they were witnessing was just a “reflex”. However, David and Kate held onto Jamie for two hours and sure enough, they proved the doctor’s wrong. Baby Jamie is now two-years-old and is developing normally.

 

 

19. Finding Family

David and Maria Cadena adopt 5-year-old Rosie. David gives his daughter Rosie a hug as mom Maria wipes away tears of joy after the judge makes their new family legal and recognized by the state.

 

20. Fathers Welcome Their New Son into the World

New fathers BJ Barone and Frankie Nelson embrace as they hold their newborn son, baby Milo, after his surrogate mother gave birth to him on June 27, 2014.

Photographer: Lindsay Foster