I had no idea when I started this project back in August that it would turn into a meditation on life and death.
After Pastor Debbie's father, Russell, died, I spent four days chronicling the life of a single hibiscus flower, from bud, to bloom, to death as it fell from its branch to the ground.
Since December I have lost a former pastor, my cat of fifteen years, a good friend and several former classmates and schoolmates from childhood.
Just yesterday I learned of the death of a friend of mine from high school. Wayne was a year younger than me and I got to know him best my sophomore year in high school. He had been diagnosed with cancer back in December and it tore through him with a vicious speed.
I had not seen or spoken to Wayne since high school and when I saw his picture in an online obituary, I was struck by how little we change in appearance even as we grow older. His smile was the smile I remembered.
I went through my photo album and found two pictures I had taken of him. Early in my sophomore year, I had learned that we would be moving from New York to Ohio and I would be leaving behind friends who I had come to think of as family. I took many pictures that year, of friends, of teachers, so that I would always have them close.
One picture of Wayne is of him smiling in the hallway at school. But the picture that really struck me was the one I took of him curled up on a couch at friend's house, sleeping.
We all have a certain innocence when we are sleeping. It may or may not carry on once we wake up. But for Wayne, he always carried that innocence.
This morning, I took a picture of the same flower that I photographed the day after Russell died. Today there were bees buzzing about and I was reminded again of the cyclical nature of the world, of how life begins, and how to enjoy those moments when the sun rises and reaches out, spreading its light across the world.
After Pastor Debbie's father, Russell, died, I spent four days chronicling the life of a single hibiscus flower, from bud, to bloom, to death as it fell from its branch to the ground.
Since December I have lost a former pastor, my cat of fifteen years, a good friend and several former classmates and schoolmates from childhood.
Just yesterday I learned of the death of a friend of mine from high school. Wayne was a year younger than me and I got to know him best my sophomore year in high school. He had been diagnosed with cancer back in December and it tore through him with a vicious speed.
I had not seen or spoken to Wayne since high school and when I saw his picture in an online obituary, I was struck by how little we change in appearance even as we grow older. His smile was the smile I remembered.
I went through my photo album and found two pictures I had taken of him. Early in my sophomore year, I had learned that we would be moving from New York to Ohio and I would be leaving behind friends who I had come to think of as family. I took many pictures that year, of friends, of teachers, so that I would always have them close.
One picture of Wayne is of him smiling in the hallway at school. But the picture that really struck me was the one I took of him curled up on a couch at friend's house, sleeping.
We all have a certain innocence when we are sleeping. It may or may not carry on once we wake up. But for Wayne, he always carried that innocence.
This morning, I took a picture of the same flower that I photographed the day after Russell died. Today there were bees buzzing about and I was reminded again of the cyclical nature of the world, of how life begins, and how to enjoy those moments when the sun rises and reaches out, spreading its light across the world.
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