Happy Easter Grandma

My grandmother, Stella passed away October 16, 2007. This photo was from her last Easter with us; April 2007. It is a difficult photo for me to see as it is not the way I wish to remember her. I have always used my photography to tell a story. The story may not be a particularly happy one but it is a truthful story nonetheless. I think these make the best stories. I tell the story as it unfolds. I don’t use Photoshop to make things look better. They are what they are. Despite what she looked like before her death she was my Grandmother and she was beautiful.

My experience of my grandmother’s death was very different from the death of my grandfather some twenty plus years earlier. In those twenty-plus years I had grown older and wiser. I learned more about myself and what was important than I had ever known before or was possible. In that time and during the time I would spend at the nursing home with her I learned many lessons. While our lives as humans may be long they are in reality very short. It is important for us to make the best use of the time we have here on earth. I have learned that I love my wife and my kids more than they or I would ever know or comprehend. I have learned to leave the complexity that was once my life behind and live a life that is based on my terms. A life that I have created. I learned to roll with the punches, to take things as they come, to measure myself not in terms of the past or future but of the present, to keep my head raised high and looking forward to see where I am going. To occasionally look back to see where I have been and to make sure I make time everyday to “smell the roses.”

I hope my photography reflects th0se thoughts and feelings. I hope the education I received from my parents and grandparents shows though in my photography and in the way I raised my kids and love my wife. For years I have been a very harsh critic of myself. This has lead to thoughts of disapproval which has led me to not pursue the things I enjoy and love but to conquer pursuits with little vigor and enthusiasm and based solely on the needs and demands of those around me.

My photography, like my life is a growing and ever changing experience. I have only a desire to be the best as I have defined best. When I am happy with photography I have produced, then it is good work.

My Grandma Stella simply adored my wife Nancy and always thought of her as “another granddaughter.” That made me happy.

I just finished reading Anna Quindlen’s book, “Good Dog. Stay.” The book was more than I thought when I checked it out of the library last week. Toward the end, Anna describes her intensely close relationship with her dog and how the relationship mimicked those relationships she had with people in her day to day life. Anna also describes the demise of her dog and the need to “put down her dog.” I immediately and with tears in my eyes thought back to the last few years of my grandmother’s life. I focused on these and the days leading to her death in early October 2007. I was happy to have had the opportunity to share my life with her or maybe it was more the other way around, that she had shared her life with me. Regardless, I was happy she was my Grandma. I was also happy to have had the opportunity to be with her the night before she died and at the exact time of her death. When I look back at that time and think of the phone call from my sister suggesting “I night want to get to the nursing home right away I can’t help but think she waited for me before deciding it was time to leave.

I cried when Grandma passed away. I cried because I loved her very much and knowing she loved me very much. She had lived a good life. She had a good husband and a good life. She had lived to see all of her grandchildren graduate from high school and college and even was able to see great-grandchildren complete the same feat. Anna described what she thought for one moment was the sound and feel of rain, then realizing it was her husband’s tears.  She described hearing the sobbing of her children.  These were dexcriptions which were so real they immediately transported me back to my grandmother’s last moments. I felt I was lucky, even blessed. Blessed to have lnown her and blessed to have been a part of her life and blessed to have been there with her when she died. She would have been happy to know how many people were thinking of her at that time. I will fell very luck if I can experience a death as serene and as simple as hers surrounded by people who love me.

When I saw her after she had died I felt happy. Happy that she was no longer suffering and happy that she would again be able to see her husband. As time had passed she began to look more like her old self. The look of fear and anguish was wiped from her face and in it’s place was a look of comfort and contentment.