The last few years have been difficult in many ways, one being the fact that our families seemed to experience death after death after death.
Jeremy’s lovely and precocious third-grade student, Rachel; my strong and stubborn, dancing and singing grandmother; Jeremy’s hilarious, lovable Uncle Andrew; the Kuhns longtime family friend, Mrs. Giraud; my twinkle-eyed, mustachioed Uncle Dave; the best baker, cook, lap to sit on, and wrinkled hands to hold: my beloved Mommom; my cousin-in-law’s wonderful, laughter-filled dad; our vinter-neighbors’ mothers . . . the list seems to go on forever.
In the aftermath of a passing – when everyone is together with tears and memories flowing – you often go through old albums and loose photos, each one a singular reminder of the person whom you’ve lost, now gone away.
As a photographer, spending hours filtering through these remembrances – quick, little flashbacks flooding by on handy, rectangular 4×6 flashcards – I am so happy that somebody took the time to snap the shutter and capture those moments, no matter how mundane.
Ironically enough, I hardly ever photograph my family, something which has been weighing on me lately since I realized just how very few photos I took of all our loved ones recently spirited away . . .
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Irita picked me up in the iced-over parking lot of the Grants McDonald’s the night before I flew east, homeward bound for the holidays. For the first time in my New Mexico memory, a dense, swirling fog hung over everything – seemingly indissoluble and never dissipating – the mist tinted yellow in the reflection of the lights above the cars. It was between snowstorms, and nearly a foot of cold, crystallized sludge consumed everything, barely visible in the unnatural, wet gloom.
We both ground to a slick stop under the protective, misty glow of the golden arches, and I got out of my car to finish the drive in her ride – her cousin’s lovely junker of a pick-up: dark, beat-up, and crusted with high desert muck – everything a truck should be. She rolled down her window with a smile and said, “Can you let me out? – The door doesn’t open from the inside and I can’t grab the handle from this angle.” I jerked from the outside and she jumped down to help me puzzle out somewhere to sit inside the cab, as every possible inch was occupied by wrenches, tools, backpacks, groceries, and a healthy coating of dust about as deep as the snow dumped all over. It was what my dad would call a ‘gopher-mobile.’
She had invited me out of my rural solitude to have steak, Margaritas, conversation, and miniature apple pies with her family at her brother and sister-in-law’s cozy, Christmasy home. She had hardly driven anything – let alone a standard – in almost seven years, having grown up in Grants and moved away to D.C. Power to her! – that truck was a beast.
I met Irita very briefly while at Camp Mighty. It took us about one minute to realize that – unbelievably – not only did she know exactly where San Fidel was located, but she knew it because she grew up fifteen minutes away, leaving the rough-rocked desert place of her home to make a life back east while I did just the opposite. We spoke for maybe ten minutes, making just-in-passing plans to get together in New Mexico while she was back visiting family for a wedding and the holiday break, then parted. She is married to a very nice guy (who once worked at Medieval Times as a serf), and has a tall, dark-eyed, whispering five-year-old daughter.
A month after our first conversation, she contacted me to ask if I would be able to crash her niece’s wedding to help her out with something while everyone was gathered there together: photographing the hands of all the women in her family. Having photos taken of each woman’s hands was something she had always wanted to do and had never done. She envisioned all these hands – from the youngest granddaughter to her mother, the matriarch – together, jumbled, mixed, touching and intertwined, a lovely web of fingers and rings and women . . .
This was a beautiful idea I could really get behind.
So, the weekend before Christmas, the Saturday before our McDonald’s pick-up and dinner date, I met Irita and her mother, cousins, nieces, and daughter at the family wedding to photograph their hands.
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The whole thing was a captivating experience, and it inspired me to start turning my camera more towards my own friends and family . . . You can never have too many photos of the people and things and places that you love.
Be well.
– SAWK
(P.S. Thank you, Irita. You invited me into your family, into your family’s home, into your cousin’s truck, into your life, and into making your life more yours this year. I am so glad you let me be a part of this. There are more photos, too!
Cross that one off the list, woman . . . and see you in Vancouver!)
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