c. 2007 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) Elizabeth McGuire will live forever in family photographs, a tiny girl with dark blue eyes and a full head of hair.

Her family recently gathered in their New Jersey home to watch a computer slide slow of the portraits _ all the McGuires have left of their “littlest angel,” who died in March three months after she was born with spina bifida and a hole in her heart.

The images were created thanks to Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep, a nonprofit network of nearly 2,000 professional photographers who volunteer time to create digital memories of stillborn or dying babies.

Elizabeth’s mother, Carolyn, called the photos a keepsake of the “little life that came into the world … and touched her mom and dad and sisters in a very profound way.”

“They are pictures of God’s gift to us,” she said. “You cannot put into words what those photos mean. They transcend words.”

The group _ which is active in America, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand _ was co-founded by Cheryl Haggard, a Colorado mother whose fourth child, Maddux, died when he was 6 days old, and Sandy Puc’, the photographer who captured the boy’s likeness before and after his death.

Not everyone understands why some parents would cherish _ or even tolerate _ such images. But Haggard said nothing could be more precious to her or to the families that request her group’s free services.

“Once you have a positive pregnancy test you start to dream _ is it going to be a boy or a girl? What are we going to name him? Who is he going to look like?” Haggard said. “When the child dies, that dream doesn’t die. Every memory you have helps to heal your heart.”

Denise Rizzolo learned of the service at Community Medical Center in Toms River, N.J., where her daughter was stillborn last November. The child’s umbilical cord had become wrapped around her neck the previous day.

At first, Rizzolo wasn’t certain she wanted the photographs taken. But now she is grateful for the images created by Martin Comiskey. The portraits show the baby’s tiny hands and feet, cradled by her parents and grandparents at the hospital.

“They came right to the hospital. I mean, as soon as we called them, they were there within 20 minutes,” Rizzolo said. “Having the memories forever is exactly what I wanted.”

The McGuires didn’t know how long Elizabeth would survive. A few children with her disease, known as Trisomy 18, have made it into their teens; half die by the time they’re 7 days old, according to the National Institutes of Health.

The family invited photographer AnnMarie Sciascia into their living room in January to take the pictures when Elizabeth was just three weeks old. Sciascia later presented them with three compact discs: 75 full-resolution images ready for printing, as well as a slide show and flip album.

Sciascia admitted she had been nervous about the session, her first experience as a volunteer with the group. She even asked a few colleagues to come with her, but they all told her it would be too upsetting.

“My job is to help the family say goodbye,” Sciascia said. “Basically, it’s just a tragedy, so whatever little thing you can do, you do it.”

The family scheduled the photo session to coincide with the changing of the baby’s tiny yellow feeding tube, so they could remember Elizabeth without all her medical gear.

In Sciascia’s pictures, the McGuires huddle together, with Elizabeth lying on her side on a bright pink afghan blanket knitted for her by a hospital nurse. In one image, the ailing baby’s older sister, Mary, leans over to kiss her head.

“You did such a good job,” Carolyn murmured to the preschooler as the family watched the slide show in their kitchen. “You were so gentle with her.”

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Not long ago, families of stillborn or terminally ill newborns were urged to “move on” and squelch their grief, said Gerald Koocher, a pediatric psychologist who spent 30 years working at Children’s Hospital Boston and counseled many grieving families.

A gradual change began in the 1960s and 1970s, perhaps due to the influence of the women’s movement and mothers feeling more comfortable insisting that their grief should not be tucked away, he said.

Now, it’s more commonly accepted that families must grieve for infants as much as for any loved one, he said.

Reminders, such as photos, also might help siblings take part in the family’s mourning instead of feeling isolated, he said.

“By having a picture like this done, it kind of brings them into the mourning process,” he said.

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In the Victorian era, affluent families often hired photographers to preserve memories of a child who died, said Gary Laderman, a professor of religious history at Emory University and author of “Rest in Peace: A Cultural History of Death and the Funeral Home in Twentieth-Century America.”

“Mainly, it’s been about finding a proper and effective way to grieve,” Laderman said, “and some kind of reminder of appearance is a very potent means of grieving and mourning and being able to live with death, I guess, to a certain degree.”

To the McGuires, it’s perfectly simple. The devoutly Catholic family had a beautiful daughter named Elizabeth, and she deserves an honored place on their wall right next to her sisters.

“It’s a family portrait,” Michael McGuire said. “She is part of our family, even if her life is short.”

(Maura McDermott writes for The Star-Ledger in Newark, N.J.)

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