Watching my youngest sister graduate from CalState LA on Friday reminded me of a lot of things. Coming upon the heels of the death of our little dog, Eli, Krista and I had many discussions about how life just doesn’t stop for anything. Death, life, birth, hate, none of it stops life. At the end of Harriet Doerr’s beautiful Stones for Ibarra, Sara leaves behind the failed dreams of Mexico and the death of her husband, crying out in internal anguish for something to mark this spot in time, for the workers to stop working, for silence to spread itself upon the land, if only for a moment.
The workers don’t of course, and we don’t, of course, but in some corner of my heart, I found myself fantasizing ridiculously the chancellor of the school coming to the podium and before unfolding the pages of his speech, speaking quietly, “Before we begin on this uncommonly cold and windy afternoon, I’d like to thank the Parras for attending today. Krista, you lost a symbol of comfort barely an evening ago and to be here feels remarkable. The school acknowledges the desire to stop the earth and maybe even to reverse it’s course, and though no one has the power to do so, we can and do stop this ceremony, if only for a moment, we grieve with you. Peace be with you.”
But it doesn’t work that way, does it? Life continues. The little contrails in our hearts are what’s left and some fade more slowly than others. Some linger awfully long.
In that light, I continued to do what I do. Photograph. These are some of the things I saw that day.
