art, tool, transformation
I have a folder on my computer called, “Tools Laurie Uses.” My friend was a tech geek to say the least. She earned a Ph.D. in Information and Computer Science from Georgia Tech in 1987. Her dissertation was on fractals, for heaven’s sake. She was a pioneer for women in technology. That’s some pretty left-brained stuff to be sure. Laurie was also super creative. Rarely did we have a talk where she didn’t have knitting in her hands. Quilter, jewelry maker, writer, entrepreneur and more, she loved to dabble and try new creative pursuits at which she soon excelled. As you might imagine for a tech geek, Laurie was an early adopter of the iPhone and loved a good app. My son’s strongest memory of her was when she handed him her iPhone to play a game that was much more interesting than the solemn conversation the adults were having. Not to mention that the waiting room outside his dad’s ICU room was a stressful place to be. She knew what would help. Recently I came across a free app that marries photography, video and text to produce a mini online magazine that can be accessed from any browser. Steller has been a fun way to tell stories and I’m pretty sure she would have loved it. (The early adopter in her might have even known about it before me.) The first day I played with the app was the one month mark after Laurie’s death so she was fittingly the subject of my initial story. Story was our way into learning about each other: sharing what we gleaned from books we...
grief, Kairos, Photograph by Ken Gehle, prayer, spiritual
I have a confession. I’m a life-long Presbyterian who went to Catholic school (that’s not the confession but probably enough to make one crazy right there.) I am currently an elder in my church which would make my grandparents bust with pride. My grandfather was a stalwart Presbyterian church elder and my grandmother was the quintessential church lady and official silver communion plate polisher. Not a meal was taken in their house without grace spoken before it. Sandwich over the sink? Say grace. So here it is: I don’t know how to pray. My grandfather and father were the official family grace sayers and used a standard prayer. Check. In school we had the rote memorization of the rosary prayers. Done. None of those prayers felt like a personal conversation with God though. Don’t get me wrong, I have spoken to God quite a bit in the last five years but I’m not sure begging counts as prayer. My prayers sound a lot like wishes to my ears: that my husband would live, that my father would live and before that that my grandfather would live at least long enough to meet the great-grandchild I carried. He did not. My timing is off. The futility of when I pray has led me not to do it so much. It seems I’m always asking for the thing I so desperately desire after the conclusion has already been reached. “Please let this test be clean,” I pleaded. Too late, the cancer was growing. The test was just there to show the foregone conclusion. This was the case with my father. I...
art, close up, creativity, grief, landscape, letting go, loss, Love Lives On, memories, moving forward, Photograph by Ken Gehle, Photography, Products, widow
There is so little that is untouched, five years later; not much is as he left it. His studio has new occupants. The photography equipment - other than his camera that is now mine - has been sold. It has taken me all this time to finally find the will to begin the process of updating his website. This too is a letting go. Other than the cover page, I have made no changes. Technology does not wait. When he died he carried a first generation iPhone. These days, pulling up his website on a phone or iPad, which didn’t even exist at the time, results in nothing…a blank screen. I’ve had to start pointing people to the limited selection of photos in his online portfolio that was not meant for showcasing fine art prints. There is an odd noise coming from the computer he used to manage the site. The software it was created in is totally unfriendly and beyond my computer skills. Ironic, when I think back to the days when I first taught him how to use a computer. So change continues as it will. I have to move along with it. The first small improvement I made was behind the scenes but has begun to stem the tide of daily spam that has been an overwhelming problem for too long. Now the stage is set for converting the site to something that actually works to keep his work in the world. Ken was an award-winning photographer who had National ADDYs to his credit, the advertising industries’ equivalent of an Academy Award. It would break...
children, grief, landscape, moving forward, Photograph by Tamara Beachum
This is the overwhelming thought that I have these days: “You are missing so much.” Life events, big and small still occur. A problem with which we had long struggled is slowly beginning to resolve. Decisions are made. The lives of our children are beginning to take shape as they become young adults. We go off on new adventures. I see your influence. I hear your voice (and sometimes I choose not to listen.) We continue to live and I wouldn’t have that any other way. “He knows,” I’ve been told. “He’s still with you,” they say. Maybe that’s right. I don’t know yet and, frankly, neither do they. I’ll hope for that but in the meantime I can’t help but think of all you are missing. Does this phrase resonate with you? I’d love to know. Leave a comment in the box below....
grief, grief as teacher, letting go, loss, Photograph by Tamara Beachum, Quote
I am tired to the bone, more teary now than I was at my mother-in-law, Peggy’s, memorial service and I smell like other people’s perfume from all the hugs. (That’s a good thing.) My stoic Scottish side automatically comes out at memorial services but stories do sink in when I let them. Robin, my sister-in-love, spoke beautifully of her mom during the service. I can only hope that someone speaks as eloquently of me when I’m gone. Some of that history I had known for a while and some I had only learned recently when Peggy and I sat together during the last weeks of her illness. She was a remarkable woman who erred on the side of inclusion and for that I will forever be grateful. I came along late in her son’s life but she observed us and pronounced our union good. That meant a lot to me, to both of us. I realize now that Peggy and I should have had some mother/daughter dates long ago without having our men around. They are fantastic people but the four of us together had too much to say. I will cherish these last few weeks when she and I swapped our stories, past and present, with pregnant pauses in between. Given a similar love of nature, we sat on the porch naming the birds we knew and questioning each other on the ones we didn’t. Fellow pluviophiles, when a thunderstorm rolled through we relished the sudden darkness and I opened the blinds so she could see the deluge from her bed. We talked about simple pleasures...
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