In our fast-paced lives, it is difficult to measure the positive impact we can have on another person’s life. And we often neglect the power of kindness and love for one another and the humanness we all share. It is evident in the love of a mother or father for their child, in the love of newlyweds, or in the face of a grandparent seeing their newborn grandchild for the first time.
And it is evident in the kindness, love and care of a Hospice nurse or social worker visiting a client who is near the end of their life. Are they just clients, in the clinical or institutional sense? Well yes, and while that description might be apt in that sense, it falls short of accurately describing these relationships and the connections that are formed between individuals and families facing illness and even the inevitability of the end of life.
It was my privilege this past year to photograph hospice care and at the families invitation create lasting memories and photographs that offer the truth of what the process of death and dying looks like and how families and friends deal with the pending loss of loved ones.
This was an emotional and very rewarding experience for me personally. I met some wonderful patients and family members whose example taught me not to wait to live life to the fullest. To love and be loved, to live each day as if it were your last. Beyond the clichés it taught me humility as I witnessed the courage of people at the end of their lives. Don’t wait!
When the subject of a photograph dies, it becomes what can be called a post-physical image. This is because it no longer depicts a physical body going about in the world. Instead, it now corresponds only to memories of the deceased in the minds of the living who knew them. The departed person is physically dead but remains symbolically alive in memory, which is supported by a photograph. The image itself is an extension of recollection.“
—Marwan T. Assaf
