Look up!
How we keep the ones we love alive
Human beings are funny creatures. We think we’re aware of what’s around us, but most of the time, we tune it out. We don’t really look.
And we miss a lot.
My grandfather—my dad’s father—was an amateur photographer. I was an absurdly young age when he let me check out his 35mm camera, patiently explaining the focus dial and how the two halves of the circle I could see through the lens would line up when the image was clear.
I have wondered for years why he let me literally toy with his expensive camera; I’m sure he told me I had to be very, very careful with it, but it was still an act of massive faith to let me anywhere near it. But he did, and it’s one of my oldest and fondest memories.
Somewhat less old are the memories of him telling me to look at things from different angles. To get a new or unusual perspective. He was not afraid to lie flat on his back under a flagpole or a tree or anything else that rose up above his head to get an unusual photo.
The first time he told me to lie down on the ground to take a picture, I must have looked at him like he had lost his mind. But I did as I was told, and damned if the old man wasn’t right. The view from the bottom of a tree trunk is anything but ordinary.
I am, as a result, inordinately fond of this sort of photo. There are trees I pass on a regular basis that call to me, especially when they’re still flush with fall leaves, to grab my camera (or, these days, even my phone), find a convenient side street where I can park, and snap a picture before the owner of the yard has occasion to think that I, too, have lost my mind and chase me away.
I took the photo above last month, while I was cooling my heels at Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center before I went to see Loreena McKennitt. I glanced up and immediately thought of Grandpa, so I grabbed my phone and snapped a photo.
I love the fact that this part of my grandfather lives on through me. It’s not the only one, but it’s the one that comes to mind most easily, because I’m reminded of it so regularly.
We’re in the time of year right now where old traditions say that the “veil between the worlds”—between the living and the dead—is especially thin, which is why we have Halloween and All Saints/Souls Day just behind us, so it seems like an especially good time to find connections between ourselves and those we’ve lost. I’d love to hear how you carry the spirit of those who’ve gone before you.