It all started with the opening night Poynter session with Matt Thompson and Robin Sloan and their film "Epic 2014." The more they talked, the more my morale and confidence slowly declined. My genre of storytelling via photography was becoming obsolete. Suddenly my pictures weren't enough to cut it anymore. The frozen moment wasn't enough anymore. Now I was told that I needed audio and multimedia to get noticed in this cutthroat competitive world of mass media.

I was paralyzed, but it was nothing new for me. I had been through times like this before. I don't like change. Change has meant very negative things in my life.

It is always a hard pill to swallow when you make the transition from a child into an adult. In one year's time, I found out that Santa Claus and the Easter bunny weren't real and the tooth fairy forgot to cash out my tooth. For most kids, all this would be a short-lived trauma. But not for me. Because this was also the year my little brother Scott died in his sleep.

I awoke that cold muddy morning in December to different sounds in my house. Something had changed. Where once Thursday morning cartoons blared from the downstairs television, this Thursday there was the loud hum of people coming from the house. The usual pancakes and thick, sizzling bacon strips were replaced by a mountain of unfamiliar food dishes brought by neighbors. It was this morning I wasn't awakened by my mother's voice demanding that we "rise and shine." Instead my sobbing mother herded my two siblings and me onto my bed and informed us of the loss of our baby brother to some acronym called SIDS. He was 5 weeks old.

In the weeks leading up to his death we were the typical suburban, four-sibling family�cooperative, creative and energetic. As the oldest, I led my siblings on our daily adventures and they would happily do my bidding. For an 8-year-old, it was a good arrangement. My mother replays the stories to me over the phone, emphasizing just how proud I was to have my brother Scott join my legion of preschoolers. I was the one in the family who could always get him to stop crying. This was especially helpful for my mom when he would get fussy at dinner.

To me Scott was something of a family trophy. When others brought in stuffed animals and rocks for show and tell, I brought in Scott. My other brother Eric and I, already deep into our Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle phase, would pretend to get knocked out from Scott's assisted fists and would hit the carpeted floor with playful groans. AAAAAGGGHHH! From our point of view, the sooner we started teaching him proper death sound effects, the better off he'd be.

According to my mother, I was not your run of the mill older brother. Upon Scott's arrival home, my days were filled doing everything to ensure the safety of my future playmate. She recalls me scouting out the footing of a pathway and would warn her of any ice on the steps. I took precautions with my bout of mono and wore a bandana over my face the first couple of days after he came home from the hospital. Five and a half weeks later I would wake to use the bathroom one night and looked upon him with no indication of anything wrong. I went to sleep. The next morning he was gone.

I had never been exposed to death before. As a 2nd grader, life was still simple. Days were filled with recess, sleepovers, and the hard decisions of what toy to play with. Should we build spaceships with our Legos or a pirate ship? This day we didn't even think about our toys. That a family member was no longer with us was something that I couldn't quite process. I walked around our guests that morning in what I remember as a slow motion daze.

Our family room was a mix of police, paramedics, family, friends, and strangers. I was confused. I was dazed. I watched my father's friends, grown men, embrace my father as they all wept.

But boys don't cry.

My mother's friends took me away from her and tried to get me to eat the strange cold food in our kitchen.

But you're not my mom.

I watched as the county coroner carried out the death scene investigation. The paramedics who had failed to breathe life into my brother's 11-pound body, quietly gathered up their small defibrillator.

God, how could you do this to my family?

During a time like this, you tend to rationalize how something like this could happen. You search for a reason, an explanation, a cause. My route, after bearing witness to all the chaos of that day, was to blame myself. Maybe it was because of my mono? Maybe I should have checked to see that he was breathing on my way back from the bathroom last night? Suddenly life couldn't be trusted. From that moment on, change or transitions in my life became very scary and uncomfortable tasks for me. I didn't realize then that the whole family was equally affected. My mother so deeply, she wanted to take her own life.

Years passed and with them more loved ones. Before I knew it I was going off to college, to a small Montana town, light years from the friends and the flat, Illinois countryside of my youth. I was excited but the transitions were still unsettling for me. Then the news came. A call from my mom informed me that my best friend from high school was electrocuted when his car hit a telephone pole. It was if the floodgates of emotion that I had successfully held back for so much of my life suddenly burst open. I was a wreck. I could no longer control my buried emotions and I desperately needed to talk about them.

At the same time in my life, I was in the beginning stages of a pursuit of journalism. My moods directly correlated to my work. If I was happy my pictures conveyed creativity, passion and careful thought. If I was upset, my pictures were flat and boring. Counseling led to understanding. I realized that my solace would be found in exploring that which caused me so much grief and hardship, the topic of dying. For the next three years I began a documentary project exploring how our society approaches and reacts to the loss of a loved one. My route would be through Hospice. I saw families forgiving each other for past faults that no longer held meaning. For me, it was a chance to forgive my 8-year-old self. That I was that it wasn't my fault. That my family would be all right. By dealing with my own grief, I was able to explore more intimately the journey of others.

Those experiences were always hard. And for almost every one of them I would worry myself sick that I might be incapable of doing them. The situations only grew more demanding and intimidating upon my arrival to Poynter. It was here that I encountered the recommended union of audio and pictures to convey the story. This was a problem. I didn't know how to do audio. Why should I? What if I failed?

The faculty at Poynter was not really interested in my doubts in my abilities or in my anxiety about new endeavors. It was here that I was given an ultimatum. Either I decide to do my work or look into finding another career. Here I didn't have time to sit and ponder my angst regarding a certain project. It was wasted energy. Deadlines were deadlines and with the little amount of time that was allotted for story work, I would require every minute of it.

Nothing would come easy for me. I tried to fight the idea of audio. I opted to let my other group members handle it. Ignorance was bliss. It wasn't until I saw it in action that I began to understand its full potential. I watched Julie Kubal's dancing polka story pictures come to life with combination of the sounds. The story wasn't just about the people but about the music itself. I could hear the voices of those dancers and feel the energy of the music. I knew it was my turn next.

For my last assignment, I decided to tell an audio photo story of a woman who made her living as a living statue. Rather than hold off on the audio process, I decided to dive right into it. I spent the majority of the first day interviewing her and getting a thorough amount of audio of her describing her process, mindset and observations of her performances. By separating the two tasks by day, I realized I could give both my full professional attention. I found that I didn't have to be a juggling act. Through the help of countless individuals, I was able to produce an audio slide show that I am quite proud of. It was a photo slide show of this woman with audio of her talking describing job and lifestyle.

Prior to arrival here at the Poynter Institute, I was concerned about how I would perform and wondered if I had what it takes to be successful in the eyes of the journalism instructors. I had but to open my mouth and instantly those unknown strangers became friends and allies worried about the same things that I worried about. Through the day in and day out discussions with faculty, I learned that I wasn't alone out there. To report was to be part of an armada, a team of individuals working towards the same goal while supporting and nurturing itself from within. I have learned that change and all of its unknown possibilities isn't something to distrust. Instead it is something to embrace.

From here on out, I know I will be OK.

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