Eulogy

[teddy_radiator]

My poor heart-broken friend is asking everyone on Facebook to post photos of his late wife, and it occured to me that there aren't a thimble full of photos of me over 30. If this ever happens to TheHubs™, he will have pretty slim pickings.

When she grew up, she avoided photos like the plague.

I think it was because she knew photos never truly caught her. You know how some people, photogenic people, look just like themselves in every photo? They’re full of life and look natural and easy. Like the photo is the best of them, the sum total of what and who they are.

She wasn’t like that. She always looked stiff and self-conscious in them, like they were some kind of identification or evidence she didn’t want circulated. Photos of her looked like the stuff she had left behind, like potato peelings, or wood shavings. The stuff that was unnecessary to the task at hand. The stuff ultimately thrown out with the other garbage.

She said she wanted to be remembered in 3-D; moving about, talking, laughing, singing, laughing, crying.

It was hard enough to get to know her in real life; in photos, she almost wasn’t there. In every picture, even the not-half-bad ones, she looked blurry, dead-eyed, uninteresting. That was really it, wasn’t it? Photos made her look dull and unremarkable – a person you probably wouldn’t care to know.

Photos, she said, were proof you had been here. Photos told a story; photos remembered. All she would leave behind were words, a voice, a song. They would have to tell her story.

She was only passing through. In time, no one would remember what she looked like.

Comments

[mywitch.livejournal.com]

Oh Teddy, that's lovely... ❤️

[teddyradiator.livejournal.com]

Thank you, darling ♥

[too-dle-oo.livejournal.com]

It's funny to me how people tend to fall into one or the other of the extreme camps where photography is concerned: the narcissists photograph themselves everyday to post to social media, while the avoiders go decades with nothing to visually remember them by. As an avoider myself, I'm working hard to let people photograph me because my family members have asked for it. (That being said, a photo that truly captures your spirit is a rare gift! Most, as you say, squash the soul right out of you.)

[teddyradiator.livejournal.com]

I can count on one hand the photos of myself I can stand to actually look at. I envy photogenic people.

[too-dle-oo.livejournal.com]

I hear you! I've got SO FEW photos I don't despise.

[snapebraille4tu.livejournal.com]

You continue to astound me with your writing. This is so well-said. ❤️

[teddyradiator.livejournal.com]

Thank you, Brailley-angel.

[gelsey.livejournal.com]

I take selfies to document my life since no one else is going to. Some I hate, some I like. I do ir largely to document and as something to help with my self esteem,like I read in an article once. It actually does help some, most days. Most spontaneous pics I hate, but that is, perhaps, because I don't see many of them. I am generally the only one who bothers. That being said, my friend Tanya did take a really nice pic of me when I wasn't looking the other day when we were at the state Park and I really liked it. It did capture a really happy moment and I look it for once.

[mimimanderly.livejournal.com]

I find that I like the spontaneous pictures taken of me much better than the posed ones. I think it may be because the former are taken when I'm doing something, usually with an honest grin. I am more relaxed. Posed pictures, I expect more from, because I am micromanaging every detail from the way my hair falls to the tilt of my head to my slight smile. But I am never relaxed, and they seldom please me. For instance, there were many, many pictures that I discarded before I took the one in my icon, which finally pleased me. And it seems that the older I get, the less I like the results of the posed ones.

[teddyradiator.livejournal.com]

I think selfies are a good thing - they get you USED to being photographed. I almost flinch in every photo I'm in. Even the ones where I'm caught off guard and happy, I look strange and unnatural. I don't photograph well, and never have.

[dickgloucester.livejournal.com]

*hugs*

[teddyradiator.livejournal.com]

♥

[delphipsmith]

That's more beautiful than any photo could ever be. *snif*

[teddyradiator.livejournal.com]

Thank you ♥