30 minutes in the Life: April 2014: Time passes by

In the life of a photographer, whose art is created in tiny fractions of a second, thirty minutes is a sustained thought.  Thirty, minutes, the length of a child's ballet class, a quick sauce's simmer; a commute, is long enough to witness change and short enough to be over before you know it.  We offer you here our monthly results of thirty minutes of watching and waiting and recording, of rendering permanent those fractions of a second that slip past in the time it takes to watch a television show.  Thirty minutes in the life ~ Sara Kelly

I will start out by saying that I switched tracks this morning, 4 days before this blog was due.  I will confess that 3 of my photo's are not part of the 30 minutes of continuous taking.  I will ask your indulgence as I tell my story.

Time passes by.....

At my age you begin to wonder where time is flying to.  It seems like the days merge into months and suddenly another year has gone by.  You feel a bit older, but not old and yet you know that time is passing by rapidly. You hear about folk of your parents generation who have passed on and then you hear of your friends suddenly dying, and it becomes more real.

Nothing however, can be more real than when a family member passes away.  I recently had time to prepare for the passing of a loved one. Yet how to you prepare to say goodbye to someone you love.  So I took time to reflect on who she was to me, and how much she meant to me throughout my life.

Joy was first and foremost family.  Her mother and my grandmother were sisters. My grandmother and Marion were 2 of 8 children.  I remember they lived together after their husbands died.  So my mother and Joy were cousins. As you can imagine I had a big extended family.  Growing up in the 60's, 70's & 80's cousins who were older were aunts and uncles out of respect. Richard always said I had way too many aunts and uncles. So she was a cousin, but she was my aunt. And we were family.

More than that, Joy and my mother were very close.  In fact, so similar is so many ways that they were like two peas in a pod.  They thought alike, they argued alike. For a while they lived together.  My brother reminisced, just today, that he remembered how stubborn they were. Each believed they were right.  He remembered one hanging out the washing on the line, and the other going out and rehanging the washing the way she wanted it.  They were like tweedle dee and tweedle dum, and I loved them both.

Joy became more than just my mother's cousin and my aunt, when I was a teenager.  She became my friend.  I used to go and stay with her during the boring vacations or when her son Patrick came home from the army and had decided to visit with her. She lived in a remote part of Northern Natal.  There was nothing to do but talk. She had a wicked sense of humor.  Her laugh was naughty. Often she knew she should not do or say something, but it never seemed to worry her. She didn't expect you to like her, but in the same token, if she did not like you, oh well, life was tough.  She would laugh and shrug and look coy. She was blunt. If you did not want an honest answer, don't ask the question. And she had a heart of gold.  As a teenager and in my early twenties I so very much enjoyed those times with her.  

Joy was there for my mom just before my dad died.  She arrived, she moved in, she supported, she teased my dad into doing things, like eating his food, that much to my mother frustration she could not do.  Joy was there for me when my dad died. She knew how much I grieved when cancer took his life.  He was way too young.

In 2001 we left South Africa to move to the the United States and in 2006 my mother had a brain tumor.  Joy was there.  When I flew home, she came to stay. And when I left, she stayed on for a number of weeks supporting and being there for my mother.  Our relationship became long distance.  I would try to phone her every couple of months.  When her younger son passed away from Lou Gehrig's disease I grieved with her.  He had been my age, and my friend.  He was way to young to die.  In 2007, when my mom passed away so suddenly, she was once again there for me.  Not physically this time but emotionally she was a phone call away.  

Joy became not only my aunt and my friend, but a very tangible link to my mother. She told me the stories of my mothers youth. She did not know the family like my mother did but she knew my mother.  Like my mother she understood me.  She understood my fears, my hurts, my heartaches, my highs and lows.  She encouraged me, consoled me and brought me closer to resolving the things that I could resolve, and bluntly told me to let go of the things I could not resolve.  I tried my very best to stay in touch with her regularly.  Did it happen every month, no, time zones mess with me, and sometimes we were out of town.  But when I did happen to get her, what a blessing.  We picked up where we left off.  Laughing, encouraging, being one with each other.  An international conversation that lasted 1 hour was always too short.  

One day I phoned to find out that her daughter was struggling with the same disease that had taken her son and my heart broke for her sorrow, and, once again, I grieved with her when her daughter passed away.  Again I grieved with and for her when her grandson passed away. Both were too young to die.  We both agreed that this was not the natural order of life.  

And then I phoned, and she was struggling to breathe.  She told me that she had developed a condition that had made her pretty much bed bound.  My heart broke. She had always been a vital woman and to hear this was saddening.  To be so far away even harder.  There is the frustration of wanting to do so much and yet being unable to be there to do it. Unable to help out, in the same way that she had helped me out.  Slowly this life that I had drawn so close to, this life that had endeared me to her, was slipping away.  

My last phone call she did not answer, and I was told that she was not good and it would not be long.  I had a week to prepare for what was to come, for my mind to wrap around the years of love. The mental knew that she would not want to live like this, the conversations we had spoken to that effect were a reminder for me. Yet the emotional struggled with the letting go. Wanting to hold on to that family link that we have had from when I was a young child but also the friendship and closeness we had had for 44 years.  I wanted to just tell her I loved her one more time. To tell her it was okay.  Joy passed away on Good Friday.

She passed away on a day where she would have celebrated the death of her Lord with communion and remembrance. And on this day not unlike the previous week, I grieved and said my goodbyes to the life I had loved so dearly. And on that evening I went to the Good Friday service and I shared in the communion and remembered both her and the meaning of Good Friday.  It was not easy, nor is it still.  The tears flow as I write this and I know that she would say to me "Dry up your tears child, you know I am at peace.  I would not want to live on this earth longer than I need to.  I would not want to continue to live the way I was living, tied to a bed".  The head knows, the heart not so much.  But I am so glad that I ended each telephone call with the words "I love you, talk to you soon".  I know that even though I did not have the opportunity to say my goodbyes, she knew that I loved her.  My mother, having lost a son, always told us that she loved us. I am thankful for that and that I was able to pass that love on.

I hope that in time I can become that person that my aunt was for me.  Whether it be to family or friend.  To have the opportunity to take a young life under my wing and shelter them. To be a friend. To love unconditionally.  To be there emotionally. To know that I have made a difference in that persons life, just as Joy made in mine.  Like my mother, I will miss her dearly. I will miss the conversations, the bluntness, the laughter, the truth, the soft chiding, the love. I will miss her very essence.  She made a difference, and I am so grateful that it was with me. 

“An ordinary visit to a beautiful garden always creates an extraordinary time!”

― Mehmet Murat ildan 

Thank you for walking this difficult blog with me.  My way, very often, of walking through grief is through the written word.  One lesson I have learned through my life, there is only one guarantee in life ~ if you are born, you will die ~ Always remember to tell those you love that you love them. Life is unexpected and we only have one day at a time.  

This is the Circle of Life and time passes by.....


Please remember to take a look at what Sophie James, Bluebells on the Green, Glasgow Lifestyle Photographer has to offer this month in the circle blog.

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