Saturday, January 18, 2014

Capturing our Stories

Today I read a beautiful article that really got me thinking. During a commercial photo shoot for a show on the Oprah Network - near the end of the shoot - one of the actors requested the photographer to take a few more shots for him. As he stepped back onto the backdrop, the actor began to sob. The photographer captured about a dozen or so shots before finally feeling uncomfortable with remaining uninvolved and then walked around the camera to give the man a hug. The actor went on to tell him that his father had died that day, and he had just gotten the phone call while on their lunch break during the shoot. He had been holding it in all day - without anyone knowing - and finally, at the end of the day, he just wanted someone to record what he was going through. The images are beautiful… I have shared one below.


As a photographer, and as a human being, this story touched my heart and really got me thinking. I have taken many many self portraits since Drew died… and the vast majority of them seem to end up being on my phone while at the cemetery (including the two below). I don't know why I do this, but nearly every time I am there, in the quiet space where his body lay, far out in the countryside, I seem compelled to get out the camera and look back in at myself. I want to see myself going through it. I want to capture it - all of it - the pain, the tears, the anguish. I want to have a conversation with myself and explore it from a different point, from a point where I am suddenly outside looking in on that moment. I don't know why, but I want that. I'm guessing a lot of us for one reason or another want to capture the pain in some way. After all, even pain is sacred… especially sacred.



The other thing it made me think about was the fact that I have just one photo of myself from the week that Drew died that captures the essence of that time for me. Only one. For someone who takes thousands of pictures a year and whose very nature is to record everything visually, this feels horrifying. I had no thought then to take photos of myself or to have anyone else do it. I had no thought at all. And yet how I wish - in some strange way - that I had a photo of myself and my two girlfriends enclosing me in their arms on my bedroom floor in the hours after I got the news that he died. I wish there was a photo of the moment I burst into tears in front of his open casket near the end of the viewing… when I clasped my hand tightly over my mouth to keep from screaming. In that moment - in that photo - you would see my older brother jumping up from his seat to rush by my side. My brother, who had not seen me cry since our mom died when I was nine years old, whom I have called countless times since Drew died now, in tears, and been made to laugh and feel loved by the end of our phone call. Or the moment I stood in front of a church full of people and spoke with complete tact and strength and grace about the man that I will love forever.

How I wish there were photos of all of those moments. And I don't even know why. I suppose because it would prove that it was real. Because it all feels too awful to be real. Or maybe just to be able to look back more literally, and see from where I am now, where I was in those first days. To see it from a different place. To see with these eyes what I have lived through.

But I do have that one photo of me from the week he died. It's not one that I took of myself. It is not even a photo I was aware was being taken. It was he and I, in the very last moments of closeness our bodies would ever have. It is a photo that I cherish because it tells such an important part of my story. Decades from now, when someone wants to know how I became who I am - it is this picture that I will show. It shows the death of both of us… and it shows the tender beginning moments of the woman that I would go on to become… that I am becoming day by day.

Whenever I lose sight of everything I've been through or begin to be too hard on myself for not being stronger or doing better… this is the photo that puts everything back into perspective for me and reminds me of exactly the woman I am dealing with, and to be gentle with her heart… for she has endured enough and needs only and absolutely love - now and forevermore.


The source of the article and photo referenced in this post can be found here - via Jeremy Cowart. Thank you Jeremy. All other photos are my own.




14 comments:

  1. I ended up crying by the end of your article - for you, for my loss, for those who didn't get to live out their lives, for the sanctity and dignity of dying. Before I myself had been through loss so deep, death seemed so abstract, so two dimensional. Then dying and death became very real, very three dimensional and people in 'real life', enjoying each other's company, felt two dimensional. I struggle even now making my life as vivid and three dimensional as it used to be before I lost him. Now I see that what we went through actually adds dimension to our character. It just isn't readily apparent as we reengage with life. And what we build of our loves afterwards can be vivid and three dimensional in a profoundly new way.

    All your photos are eloquent. Your last photo speaks volumes, and as you so write, these are the tender, beginning moments of the woman you are going on to become. I wish you well; I'm glad you contribute on these pages. It was a big help to me today.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you so much friend. It really truly helps to hear back from anyone who has read my words. You are so right about it giving more dimension to life - i love the way you described that. Thank you for sharing!

      Delete
  2. Well dammit, now Im a sobbing mess , AGAIN, for the third day in a row. Good morning Sunday. Enough with the sobbing this week!!! lol. This post got to me. Really got to me. I think its the pictures, and seeing it visually. The two of you at the cemetary are stunning, but the moment I started sobbing loudly wasnt from a picture. It was when you described putting your hand over your mouth so you wouldnt scream, and your brother rushing to your side. I could FEEL that happening, in my mind and heart, even though there was no picture attached to it. You made me see it. I just thought you should know that.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Oh my gosh, thank you for this comment Kelley. I'm so glad that moment i described came out so clearly to you, i can see it so clearly in my mind, and i hoped to get that across. Looks like I did. <3 love you girl.

      Delete
  3. This may be my favorite WV post, ever. Thank you.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Tender and raw post. It spoke to my heart as I've felt these same feelings. It is hard to go back to those days. It's been 2 years. But,the pain still carries whether or not I want it. It would be nice to have all of the love people showed photographed. I am starting to forget. It was a raw time. Now, I am a different person, better, stronger. But I'd still like to see those days sometimes, because the heart still hurts and pictures give understanding to the soul. Thanks for sharing. You've written my feelings

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you for sharing in this post with me Laura, and for leaving a comment. It helps to hear from those who are reading.

      Delete
  5. I'm a fellow photographer who was married to a photographer so I see memories in snapshot whether I have an actual picture to refer to or not. The last time I touched his body one of our friends was in the ICU to capture the moment. I cherish that. But the one that is burned into my memory is when I caressed his ashes into the ground in the shadow of Half Dome in Yosemite. "The very last moments of closeness our bodies would ever have" describes it perfectly. Thank you for that.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Oh I can so relate Tamara.. i see them like snapshots in my mind too. What a beautiful place to spread his ashes. Drew and I always dreamed of going there, one day, I will still go!

      Delete
  6. I agree with the 2 comments above. I was sobbing within a few sentences of this post. Awesome writing. It brought me back to those days so fully. I have been many stages on this road and not the stages everyone says I should. My stages don't resemble any of those. During some of the stages I could not have read this and made it through the rest of the day. Today I can read it, sob and go out and greet the world. Thanks for letting me grief a little with you today!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you so much for this comment - it really meant a lot to me!

      Delete
  7. Pain is sacred...YES.

    Sarah, this is heartbreakingly beautiful. <3 P.S. I really hope you're coming to Camp Widow sometime soon. Really wanna meet ya.

    ReplyDelete
  8. I take photos of myself leaning against my beloved brother's gravestone and now, through your words, I understand why. Nobody knows that I go to the cemetery and that I lean back upon Robert's gravestone.(It's actually strangely comfortable and comforting all at the same time) Nobody knows that I turn on my iPhone and listen to Bruce Springsteen music as I stare up into the tree that hangs over my brother's grave. It has become eerily familiar to me with the little yellow flowers and chirping birds overhead.Thank you for giving voice to this strange kind of loneliness. My thoughts and prayers are with you, too.

    ReplyDelete