04/09/2024
PRAX 300 - final assignment of year three!
title: Absence of You
i have been in my childhood home for almost twenty three years and was raised in it by my parents and grandparents, alongside my sister and brother.
since my grandpa has been passed away for a couple years now, there has been a lack of physical representations of him which has been hard to get used too. however, in the little things that i do; like watch certain television shows, sit outside or even eating at the dinner table, i can still sometimes feel his spiritual presence around the house.
i cannot describe the feeling of what it is like to have an absent physical body but still feeling as if they are really there. this is what my photography project helped me to understand more about grief, loss of a loved one and truly feeling his absence. i learned a lot about my grandpa from digging through his things even though it felt as if i was intruding. i never knew certain things about him till now. for example, his massive pin collection or that he kept all these cards from when my mom was little to us three grandkids.
i remember when he had just passed away, i had a vivid dream about him about a week later. he came upstairs and dug through his morning pill container, as i watched him fiddling with a kleenex in his blue button up shirt pocket. i was trying to talk to him but he wouldn’t respond, instead he just stood and smiled at me without moving and inch. i woke up calm, yet frustrated trying to figure out why he never spoke but i knew he was a man of few words and only spoke when felt necessary.
i automatically knew that he was okay and that i was going to be okay because he was looking after me, even though i lost my favourite human. whatever you do, don’t take these special moments with them for granted. if your grandparents want to have coffee in the mall with you, please go because oh how i wish i could do that just one last time and watch him do his word search or scratch and wins.
thank you pop for these many constant reminders that you are near. like being followed by a butterfly the day after you passed and a lady told me that it was someone checking up on me from beyond. i still feel the absence of you in everything that i do, especially now that i am getting closer to moving on… literally and figuratively!
miss you tons pop, from your favourite.
forever and always,
glory
