BROOKLINE — In a series of portraits shot by photographer Kim Kennedy over the past year, dancers from the Boston Ballet appear to be falling from the sky. Their costumes, fashioned out of newspaper, show signs of fraying in mid-flight.
For Kennedy, who arranged the photo sessions around his hospital visits to receive chemotherapy, the images are nearly as personal as X-rays of his cancer-stricken body.
“It wasn’t planned, but they do show what I was going through,’’ Kennedy says during a lengthy, sometimes emotional interview at his Brookline apartment, which he shares with his wife, Marina, and their daughter, Misha, 5. “When I finally spread the pictures out, you could see it.’’
He pauses to sip some juice, dehydration being one side effect of the latest drug regimen he hopes will save his life. “They’re not doing happy ballet pictures,’’ he continues, alluding to the exhibit, which is scheduled to go up at Boston Ballet headquarters this spring. “They’re floating, like I was floating. You can see it in their faces.’’ Kennedy takes another swallow. “The only time I felt normal was when I was shooting.’’
Kennedy, 49, a well-known local fashion photographer, is among the hundreds of cancer patients undergoing treatment in the Boston area at any given time. His yearlong battle with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, first diagnosed in January 2010, at an advanced (Stage 4) level, is unremarkable in that sense. Many other cancer patients and their loved ones have become achingly familiar with drugs such as Rituxan and Methotrexate, seen once-taut bodies swell while taking steroids, agonized over CAT scans and MRIs, and relied on potent pain medications to get them through another trying day.
To friends and colleagues, though, and even to doctors and nurses who have treated him, the courage, humor, and optimism Kennedy has shown is anything but ordinary.
“You fall in love with Kim’s spirit. He’s so down to earth,’’ says Shannon Allen, wife of Boston Celtics star Ray Allen, whose professional collaboration with Kennedy has blossomed into a close friendship. Allen manages the Goonies, a local rock band, and hired Kennedy to shoot the group’s latest music video, knowing every project he undertakes is complicated by his fragile health. Kennedy, says Allen, is “not only a fighter — he’s the coolest man on the planet.’’
Dr. Rodney Jamil, an oncology fellow at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, one of three local hospitals where Kennedy has been treated, says Kennedy’s positive attitude has impressed everyone who has helped him deal with his condition. “He really encapsulates what it means to love life, to want to live,’’ says Jamil. “That’s not only what’s kept Kim going through chemotherapy; it’s also inspired me.’’
Marina Kennedy, a former professional basketball player, says her husband’s cancer has magnified every possible emotion a family can experience, from anxiety to depression to euphoria. “Behind closed doors, you see the reality. And the reality is, we’re both scared,’’ she admits. “But we’ve got to deal with this. I know from being a basketball player, you win as a team. And I hate to lose.’’
Others rallying to Kennedy’s side include members of the Boston Bruins and top Manhattan fashion models who have worked with Kennedy. In October, the Bruins invited Kennedy to photograph pediatric cancer patients at the team’s annual Hockey Fights Cancer event. Mark Recchi and Patrice Bergeron were among the players embracing Kennedy as he walked into the TD Garden. The Ford Models agency hosted a New York fund-raiser that netted $10,000 to help Kennedy pay bills not covered by his medical insurance, one of several outpourings of financial support he has received.
Despite all he’s been through, including brain surgery two months ago, Kennedy has found ways to repay friends in ways large and small. Over the holidays he invited a group of Beth Israel nurses to his studio, where he gathered a team of stylists and shot portraits of each caregiver, gifting them with framed copies. When Shannon Allen arrived at his hospital room one day with buckets of homemade fried chicken and heart-shaped corn bread, he invited half the hospital to chow down with him.
“I still feel really blessed,’’ Kennedy says, his voice choking. “There are so many good things about this really nasty thing. You have to look for them, though. You have to. If you don’t look, you’re giving up.’’
‘We were all in free fall’
As a photographer, Kennedy has attracted blue-chip clients (Filene’s, Ralph Lauren, Kenneth Cole), shot celebrity portraits (Snoop Dogg, Serena Williams), and charmed subjects by the way he makes them feel relaxed and natural in front of a camera. A fitness buff, he’s run half a dozen Boston Marathons, indulged his passions for skiing and scuba diving, and was the epitome of middle-age health until late in 2009, when flu-like symptoms and abdominal pain sent him to the hospital shortly after New Year’s.
The diagnosis was swift and devastating. Even as he processed having advanced lymphoma — Stage 4 indicates the cancer has spread to multiple sites outside the lymph system — Kennedy’s vital organs began shutting down. He received his first dose of chemotherapy while phoning stunned friends with the news that he was seriously ill. Cancer, as Kennedy puts is, “isn’t something just you get. It’s something your whole family gets. My wife, my daughter, my friends — we were all in free fall.’’
Details of his medical ordeal can be found on the blog Everybodysbrother.com, which was launched by Kennedy’s friend Tom Clancy and gets updated regularly. Though often heart-wrenching — Kennedy’s daughter is no longer taken to see him in the hospital, having pronounced it the place “where Mommy always cries’’ — entries also capture the warmth and humor surrounding Kennedy’s efforts to maintain his equilibrium. At one point, Clancy describes Kennedy walking around his hospital room “like Redd Foxx playing Fred. G. Sanford.’’ His new nickname? “Camel Kim,’’ because he drinks so much liquid to stay hydrated.
For every setback — and there have been many — there are moments when the tears dry and laughter becomes his most potent wonder drug. Stylist Julie Matos, who designed the costumes worn by the ballet dancers, recalls phoning Kennedy one day to discuss the project. Matos was convinced clothing the dancers in newspaper was a brilliant idea, but Kennedy was skeptical. The two began arguing, and the arguing escalated. “Julie,’’ Kennedy said in exasperation, “you’re the only person I know who yells at me while I’m getting chemo.’’
“Kim finally said, ‘I see it,’ because I was going to back out,’’ Matos says. “The bottom line, though, is I couldn’t treat him like he had cancer. I didn’t always know how to act, but I didn’t want to treat him any differently, either. Kim didn’t want that.’’
Moments like these have helped everyone survive the past year, Matos and others say, not just Kennedy and his family. Last August, friends gathered for an annual lobster dinner normally cohosted by Kennedy. Unable to attend because he was in the hospital, Kennedy insisted the party happen without him. As 200 guests toasted him in absentia, Kennedy joined the party using Skype from his hospital bed. He was not about to miss the fun.
“I was like Max Headroom,’’ he says, smiling at the memory. “It was the best party I never went to.’’
Keeping hope alive That August hospitalization was another grim reminder of the long odds facing Kennedy. Told last summer that his cancer was in remission, he went jogging one day and suffered a seizure. Tests revealed that the lymphoma had spread to his brain. More chemotherapy followed, then surgery to remove one of two tumors doctors had discovered. The brain surgery was risky in and of itself, but it was the cancer’s reemergence that delivered the heaviest psychological blow. Kennedy credits Dr. Jamil, among others, with not allowing him to give up hope. And he has not.
“I told Dr. Jamil that I’d fight to the very end, and he shut up,’’ Kennedy recalls, tears filling his eyes. “I needed that kick in the [butt]. If it doesn’t work, I’ll know it wasn’t meant to. But I’ll know I’ve given it everything.’’
His remaining tumor is affecting his eyesight, Kennedy says, and “not much could be worse’’ for someone who makes his living taking photos. Earlier this week he underwent another round of tests and scans, hopeful the tumor would show signs of shrinking. It did not. His options now include another round of chemotherapy and possible stem cell transplant.
On Clancy’s blog, the family posted a photo Wednesday showing Kennedy and his daughter playing happily in the snow. They look like dancers, fallen from the sky. “We are outside asking the sky for help,’’ Marina Kennedy wrote, “asking Snow Angels to heal us.’’
Joseph P. Kahn can be reached at jkahn@ globe.com. 
© Copyright 2011 Globe Newspaper Company.
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