Photographs Better Off Not Taken
Went to visit my grandpa the other night. He has been transferring back and forth between Kettering Medical Center and Bethany Village's Rehab Center. I can't imagine getting the flu, bronchitis, and pneumonia at the same goddamn time. Anyways, when I got there his room was empty, but the nurse told me he was at a meeting, so I waited outside. She was really nice and even got me a can of soda. Turns out the meeting was actually a Tuesday night dinner and entertainment thing, so she led me to the auditorium to sit with him.
Strangely enough, it hardly shocked me to see him in a wheelchair, portable oxygen machine in his lap. I think talking to dad on the phone prepared me. Grandma looked at me, then at him and asked "Where do I know him from?" You could tell she recognized me, and just like when you see a B-movie actor in a major movie and say "Damn...it's on the tip of my tongue where I know them from!" once grandpa told her, her eyes lit up and she remembered. I tugged at my bangs and whispered "It's the long hair." She giggled.
In old pictures of my grandpa from when he was my age in the Army Air Corps, he was all muscle with chisled handsome features. He was quite the lady killer. And even now in his current state, I found it wonderfully amusing to see all the old ladies who, during the musical act, would turn around and give him coy smiles and waves. He never lost his touch.
Afterward I wheeled him back through the labrynthine hallways back to his room and after he sat in his chair, I got his oxygen tube for him and turned on the machine. Sitting across from him, I truly got a sense of the state he was in. As much as I love taking pretty photos, I also want to document the harshness of reality. My camera was in the car, but I sensed this was neither time nor place, so the image will have to remain in my head. There he sat, the cold flourescent lights illuminating him from behind, oxygen tubing wrapped around his ears and across his nose. Even as he talked he gazed distantly into nowhere.
Grandma had been there all day and wanted to go home, so we said our goodbyes and I drove back to their half-double. She invited me in, so we spent a few minutes looking at old artifacts of their lives. It was getting late (and frankly, I was getting somewhat uncomfortable watching her memory rhythmically come and go like waves on a beach. Shame on me.) so I left. As I did, again, I so wanted to capture the image of her silhouetted in the door waving goodbye across their dark porch, minus grandpa standing behind her.
Again, this portrait will have to exist only as a hazy memory.
Strangely enough, it hardly shocked me to see him in a wheelchair, portable oxygen machine in his lap. I think talking to dad on the phone prepared me. Grandma looked at me, then at him and asked "Where do I know him from?" You could tell she recognized me, and just like when you see a B-movie actor in a major movie and say "Damn...it's on the tip of my tongue where I know them from!" once grandpa told her, her eyes lit up and she remembered. I tugged at my bangs and whispered "It's the long hair." She giggled.
In old pictures of my grandpa from when he was my age in the Army Air Corps, he was all muscle with chisled handsome features. He was quite the lady killer. And even now in his current state, I found it wonderfully amusing to see all the old ladies who, during the musical act, would turn around and give him coy smiles and waves. He never lost his touch.
Afterward I wheeled him back through the labrynthine hallways back to his room and after he sat in his chair, I got his oxygen tube for him and turned on the machine. Sitting across from him, I truly got a sense of the state he was in. As much as I love taking pretty photos, I also want to document the harshness of reality. My camera was in the car, but I sensed this was neither time nor place, so the image will have to remain in my head. There he sat, the cold flourescent lights illuminating him from behind, oxygen tubing wrapped around his ears and across his nose. Even as he talked he gazed distantly into nowhere.
Grandma had been there all day and wanted to go home, so we said our goodbyes and I drove back to their half-double. She invited me in, so we spent a few minutes looking at old artifacts of their lives. It was getting late (and frankly, I was getting somewhat uncomfortable watching her memory rhythmically come and go like waves on a beach. Shame on me.) so I left. As I did, again, I so wanted to capture the image of her silhouetted in the door waving goodbye across their dark porch, minus grandpa standing behind her.
Again, this portrait will have to exist only as a hazy memory.
posted by Grover at 3/10/2005 06:54:00 PM
1 Comments:
Photos are captured memories, ones that last longer, and with more people, than anything embedded in a head. Thus consideration must be made as to what memories are best kept inside. Though I understand the desire.
I do so hate dementia and its relatives. They run in my family, and no doubt I'll end up that way. Everyone has permission to kill me before I get at all bad in that way.
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