A thought or two about an old photo, love, parenting

[lostnfound]

His dad has been gone a year and a half now. Son brought a photo with him to his apartment in college, and mentioned ‘I’m going to frame it.’ In this photo son is about two and a half and looking happy, standing next to his deep-in-thought dad, who is already in his late sixties. They are looking out over a pond with ducks, in a favorite Japanese garden.

When I visit him, I notice the photo is now in a simple white frame on the counter, where he sees it as soon as he walks in every day. Where he puts his books and key.

There aren’t too many photos of me and son. A few ‘selfies’ together, a couple that I had specifically asked to be taken — or else there wouldn’t be any. Dad did not have a camera habit.

I look at the photo and think “I remember the day, the mood.” “Wish we could have one more day together like that.” To catch up Dad on what has happened, how son is now in design class, how his flying lessons are progressing. A few questions to ask, maybe.

I’m not in that photo — but you know what? I AM in that photo. I’m the one who took it. I took it to capture the hour: to be sure that Son always had proof of how his dad loved him and spent time with him, as long as he could. And now, the photo is fulfilling its exact intended purpose, a moment that lives on, via the counter in his college apartment. A gift to father and son. You, older one, will not be forgotten. You, young one, were loved from the beginning.
🌹
We were split, mostly, more or less, around eleven years ago — but we loved each other to the end. As a family we did not split. As individuals we had our breaches, but luckily managed to love our way around them or past them, and in the end, built bridges over them. Not possible for many, I know.

A good father to the end.

Now we are separated in a different way, because we are unable to write or talk on the phone to those in the great beyond. Son and I struggle with what to think about this, an uncertainty principle that governs our mortal lives. Miracle upon miracle exists embedded in the secrets of the universe, discovered week after week in DNA and particle physics and the relativity of time. Could it be possible we are the tips of an iceberg and each has a presence not only in the hours that we live through above the water but in an outside-of-time space, where all is light and energy? Don’t tell me that there are no souls and memories in the aftertime, either, because there could just as easily be all souls and all memory, in such a space.

I don’t give up on such a Big Hope. No one knows, and I shall be — or, shall choose to be — uncharacteristically optimistic. Reverberations echo in strange ways, and the patterns repeat themselves intricately all the way down the Mandelbrot set. So don’t tell me that you know it isn’t so.

Take pictures, take care.
Peace.