And the winner is... Pulitzer time!

Earlier this afternoon the Pulitzer committee announced the winners for 2007, and like any good journalist I was quick on the uptake to find out who was the best of the best of my "peers" for the year. (Sometimes I do regret the move into trade publications...)

This year's winner for feature photography took my breath away.

Renee C. Byer of The Sacramento Bee spent several months documenting the slow decline of an 11-year-old boy with cancer, culminating in his eventual death. Having slowly lost my best friend to cancer two years ago (next month), I was unable to keep from sobbing at my desk as I watched the progression into sickness of this little boy, and the steely resolve of his mother to take care of him as best she could as she lost her business, her hope, and eventually, her baby.

The opening photograph is the most bittersweet of things with the boy holding his arms up in a V, smiling, as his mother pushes his wheelchair down a hospital corridor... What comes next is a testament to the beautiful, tragic, overwhelming love that human beings can have for each other - the kind of thing everyone deserves, and some of us are lucky enough to have gotten, even if it's taken away.

That's what I want out of life, I've come to realize - a partner who will stand by me for better or for worse, even when the worse is worse than you could have imagined, because then the better is aweing in its beauty and there is nothing more precious than that love that blows your mind, whether its for your lover, your child, your parent or your friend.

But don't take my word for it.