Today I met Dad down at Grandma and Grandpa's. Dad's brother, my Uncle John, is moving them closer to him in South Carolina. In light of recent stock market plunges, Grandpa took a significant hit and can no longer comfortably afford the expensive retirement community in which he lives. Dad, unfortunately, has very little money of his own aside from his just-started Social Security checks, and Uncle John, as an engineer, is in a significantly better spot to take care of Grandma and Grandpa. They leave in a week.

Most of their belongings (Grandpa is a notorious pack rat) have already been inventoried to be auctioned off to charity. A few items were held back, though... some of Dad's boyhood toys and model cars. Dad being the Classical music connoisseur, he was given Grandpa's harpsichord. Grandma was a camera nut, and they saved for me her 35mm Minolta with flash, lenses, case, and tripod. I was not expecting a thing, only to help Dad load up the harpsichord, so this was an unexpected honor indeed to be given her beloved camera.

They leave in about a week. There will be a farewell dinner, but it'll be a busy evening and there will most likely be no time for me to take either aside for portraits. Grandpa is 92, Grandma is either the same age or a year or two behind, and well advanced into Alzheimer's. When they leave for South Carolina, next week's dinner will be the last time I ever see them.

So I took a few final portraits of Grandpa, by window light, with his hand-crank Victrola behind him:




The portrait I see of him in my mind's eye, we simply have neither time nor facility to make happen. They'll have to remain mental images.

Grandma is in the Alzheimer's unit at the community. I'll get some candid event photos of her next week. Depending on the location and/or circumstances of the dinner, I'm probably going to demand a few moments aside to get some nice portraits. I'll never have a chance again to do so.