Moments, captured, kept, protected.
I always liked taking pictures but didn’t really take many. About 10 months after Tapio died, I learned that taking pictures eases my anxiety, so this is one of my go to activities on those days. I go out and take photos intentionally when I need a relief and I take them randomly, almost instinctively when, the now familiar, pressure and fidgeting starts to build up.
I never really thought much about it, I always felt like I was just taking pictures of what catches my eye. I am focused on beauty, beauty the way I see it, the way it looks for me.
I started thinking about the captured moments a few days ago when a familiar voice called my name in a shopping center. I wasn’t there to socialize, I had no meeting planned and it is quite unusual that I run into people in the middle of the day like that. We work together and used to spend quite a bit of time together, she was having coffee with a mutual friend. Did I see the baby yet, was the question. I don’t go just “see” babies. It takes preparation, focus, breathing exercises… and I only saw one so far in the last two and a half years. Babies make me feel I need to run and take photographs or do something else that eases my anxiety. I know it is hard for people to understand and they feel it is personal, and it is, but personal for me.
I went and I saw my beautiful friend and her second baby after my son died. See, she is especially hard for me. She was one of the first people I told I was pregnant, she was jumping up and down of excitement when I told her and didn’t stop for several weeks until she was ready to tell me, she too was pregnant and how exciting she has been all this time looking forward to tell me her news. Months later, on her birthday, I found out my boy was no longer alive. She was away, our communication was poor. Our bond broke for many reasons, we tried for a while, me pretending she was not pregnant, she pretending she was not pregnant. She had her son, a beautiful, curly, sweet two year old now. I see her at work, we ended up working in the same team this fall. We don’t really talk much, but I couldn’t miss another growing life on her.
She is now a few months old and is beautiful, I saw her sleeping in the pram, I touched her soft skin. I didn’t freak out, anxiety did not consume me, I felt calm and composed and I did not feel the need to run. I have been in contact with this friend quite a bit lately, it is strange how life connects. She is moving to my hometown and I have offered to help her with information so we have been talking a bit, never about the babies though.
I was thinking about our meeting while I was taking pictures on the weekend. Am I captured in the moment, while her life has continued? It sure looks that way. Of course my life is moving, the children are growing, I am too, but I am also captured in the world where he is a part of, where he is. With all the beauty. My captured moments are my pictures of my boy. In the the sunset, glistening snow, calm water, sunlit forest, rainy day. The beauty in life’s moments.
With Love, Tina
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