We attended a celebration of life for a woman with whom we had worked more than twenty years ago. We had stayed in touch because of “About Aging” and other correspondence. Several of us spoke about her life and what she had meant to kids and how unjust it seemed for her to die so young. There was in the room a sweet sadness.
Toward the end, the love of her life shared a photo show that included pictures of her at various points in her life. In one, the camera is above her, and she looked up, her eyes wide, her mouth shaped into a smile we all recognized as a trademark—friendly, knowing, and just a bit mischievous. For all of us, she was there that day, in that photo.
For three years, I worked with a group comprised of people from the California Association of Independent Schools and the Hawaii Association of Independent Schools to re-think the accreditation process for independent schools. Our finished product featured several unique questions for schools to answer, one of which required the school to produce 10 pictures or five thirty second videos “that richly convey the climate of the school.” I have seen responses from several schools; they are imaginative and revealing.
I thought about this when Judy and I were with some friends of long-standing. They have been going through hundreds of photos to pare down their collection to keepsakes. (People of a Certain Age, is this on your to-do list, too?) They picked several photos and challenged us all to recall where we had been when the picture was taken and in what year.
We had fun trying, and we think we did well as a group. We also made some observations based on the photos. For instance, they proved that, once upon a time, we all had darker hair and fewer pounds. It was obvious that we had traveled many places together.
Each photo promoted shared memories, from our B.C. era (before children, their son) to the S.T.P phase (son taking photo). We were visiting together a shared history, and it was satisfying to do so.
I had a further thought, one that parallels the accreditation question: if I were to present 10 photos or five thirty-second videos that captured the essence of my life, what would they be? Would the pictures show people, places, memorable events, animals seen on safari, famous landmarks?
Recognizing the difficulty of such an assignment, I immediately decided that the task needed to be placed in contexts. How about 10 items for youth, 10 for the ages 21-50 phase, 10 for 50 and over? Or maybe 10 about people, 10 about places? There were so many factors that would be different in one’s life, according to age and stage. How could one limit oneself to just 10 for such a long period of time?
Clearly, I was fudging.
Perhaps with justification. How can any of us reduce our complex lives over decades to a limited series of impressions? Yet, isn’t that what happens whenever a tombstone is etched for posterity?
An obituary in any newspaper, unless you have been a major figure in the history of your time, will, at most, be four or five paragraphs long (more depending on your family’s resources). What would you want those paragraphs to highlight? They will form a picture of you in words.
I began to try to think about photos. I would start with a picture of a Thanksgiving dinner in 1967 in Agoura, California where all members of both of our families were present, possibly the only time that whole group was assembled. I could cover a lot, I reasoned, in just one shot.
It got harder after that. So, I stopped.
I kept wondering, though. What pictures could represent me?
It should be obvious that I like to write. I have no doubts that the words I have written for various reasons to diverse audiences might create some sense of me. I have written, over the years, pages I once called “notes to myself at age 64,” the age chosen no doubt as a result of the Beatles’ song “When I’m 64.” When I read these pages now, I can get an idea of myself over time.
And so a light bulb went on. I could produce photographs that would have meaning to me. But there is no guarantee that the other person would see the photos as I see them or know what needs to be known to make sense of them. My pictures will reflect what I think about me, only one perspective on my life, presumably an informed one, but also biased.
Likewise, what I write in any given circumstance has particular meaning to me as I write but my words will strike each reader differently as he or she filters my words through his or her lens. Your responses to me have made that clear every two weeks since January 9, 2015.
What might be etched on a gravestone or written in an obituary will be other peoples’ pictures of me. I’d best confine myself to creating word pictures that make me proud to have been alive.
Daniel E. White
January 6, 2020