It was a cinematic, slow-motion summer we were living in suspended animation. We were all people going places we had never been, struggling to frame this new narrative of encroaching death in our own ways. Your hospital bed in the dining room became a new normal. Squinting hard into the days ahead, we tried to bring them into focus. We would catch glimpses of something divine in our peripheral vision—fireflies we would chase in hopes of capturing some solid evidence of the brilliant way you were moving through your uncertain days with such grace.
Each day was a snapshot of scenes painted with colorful, over-exposed emotions. Hands and hearts quivered. Through our filtered lens of dread, we watched the images of you begin to blur as your luminescence dimmed. Some days the veil was as thin as your shoulder blades, and dappled light from distant shores would illuminate just how close you were to vanishing from our sight. Your appetite and strength both wilted in the summer heat. You grew quiet, reflective, no longer enlightening us with trivia and raucous stories. Right before our eyes, you were disappearing a little more each day. We longed for the crisp sharpness of solid answers to impossible questions, but it evaded us. Vibrant tones of the way we were suddenly faded to black and white, replacing our yesterdays with timeless antique memories—vignettes of laughter, walking the garden’s path, and celebration songs.
The contrast of this monochromatic life is startling. We will eventually change our funeral attire and change the lens to gain a wider perspective, not so zoomed in on this noir summer of waiting, of letting go. We will open windows and open the aperture of our hearts to allow light to find its way back home. Filtered through our grief, light will once again wash over us, run through us, but we will be different people, searching for hope in your absence. We will eventually remember with fondness the times we held your hand, and the ways you held our hearts in yours. Maybe in the springtime or another summer when the air is not so thick with loss.
For today, we are content to move slowly through our raw files of grief with all their high-resolution pain, to just sit with these pictures of you, flashing brilliantly like fireflies in living color.
