Dear Photograph,
For most of my childhood, my maternal grandparents lived only a few minutes away, and my sister and I spent countless days and nights with them. Family gatherings generally took place at their house - a constant throughout my childhood, and the place I felt the most safe. My grandfather passed away almost four years ago, after a long battle against a variety of diseases. He was on hospice care in his home, and it was a horrible last few months. After, I found it difficult to go back to the house that meant so much to me, even to visit my grandmother. The rooms that once filled with laughter seemed oddly still, and filled with unhappy memories. Watching my grandmother without her husband of 53 years was hard as well. In four years it hasn’t gotten any easier. But then, on Mother’s Day, as we gathered with my aunts and uncles and cousins in my grandparents’ home, I decided to use the box of photos on the living room table for a Dear Photograph project. This experience of creating a new picture by placing my grandfather back in the kitchen he loved, was the most therapeutic way of dealing with his death I’ve found so far.
Eden