Photographs and Memories

Saturday, 30 March 2024

To: ericaclark-steele@gmail.com

From: david.steele@gmail.com

SUBJECT: Photos in Google Drive

Hi, Honey,

I hope you’re doing all right there. Oh goodness I miss you already.

I know; I know. You’re going to say I’m being sappy again. If you were here, you’d roll those beautiful sapphire eyes and shake your head at me sighing as I stare at the 20x24 shot mounted in our bedroom of our first dance as a married couple whilst Jim Croce’s “Photographs and Memories” --- the song you always love to hum whilst you work -- plays in the background. Even now, I see the clear image of you contorting your face into a grimace, hear you mimicking a vomiting sound when I try to squeeze a pillow, pretending it’s you, my Erica. It’s true, though. Every single second I’m in this bed without being able to see your eyelids flicker like a shutter bulb, every cup of coffee without your lilting laughter in the golden hour, it all feels as if my life were in freeze frame. I can’t wait until I see you again. In that moment, it will only be you in my depth of field.

Well, I got the selfie you sent me two days ago. As usual, you look stunning in it. Yes, I know you always point those blue eyes like an Instamatic at me and shudder whenever I tell you this, but really, I’m just exposing what is obvious. You truly do look like a cover girl in this photo. Your dazzling sapphire orbs, the emerald green and marigold mosaic pattern sundress floating on your lithe body, and the copper-coloured wavy wig --- You’ve always wanted to be a redhead, after all --- you carefully placed on your head all jump out of the stark white backdrop of the walls. Your beauty is the primary focus of the image, as it should be.

Like you asked me to, I’ve uploaded that it in the Google Drive you’ve meticulously set up of photos to be printed. Night after inky night, when a gold-tinged moon is the Earth’s only spotlight, I’ve watched you build your gallery of images to be placed in the 10x12 chrome frames with the leaf detail that you purchased two months ago. The self-portrait now joins a digital copy of your graduation robe print, your corporate headshot, the Instagram-style photo of us pretending to do a magazine editorial during a trip to Paris, and a still from our formal pre-wedding shoot. All of these capture your luminance, the way you saturate a room with your fire (Oh, you know I was going to say this, Hon. Eye roll away.).

I want to suggest something, though. I know. As with any project you’ve focused on, kept your eyes that have supervised many an advertising campaign on, you have scrupulously selected the photos that you think deserve to be immortalized in silver-coated paper, that you deem perfect enough to display before all of our friends and family. Well, that’s precisely the thing, though. Honey, I couldn’t help noticing that all of the stills you’ve asked to be stored in the cloud are all, well, posed, perfectly planned so that not even a single hair strand would fall out of place. It’s all well and good, but I don’t know. I feel like some snapshots of your more candid moments also deserve to see the light, that your unfiltered side is as much part of the picture of you.

If you don’t mind, I will also be printing the following images, even if it’s just for me.

1.    The photo of you beaming as you received a medal of distinction for your dissertation – Of course, you know I’d love to include this. Oh, how I love how the gold award hanging proudly on your delicate neck and the warm glow of the late afternoon sun brought your expressive blue eyes to the foreground. Even more so, I love how your wide, toothy grin could rival even high lumen flash bulbs in terms of brightness.

I may not have photographic memory, but I still remember the day I took that shot. You looked so ecstatic, so admirative of yourself. I was so proud of you, my university best friend, as well…so proud, in fact, that I began to see you through a different lens. You know that it was the day I realised I was in love with you, that you were the subject of all my dreams.

Of course, little did I know then that you felt the same way, that you were taking millions of snapshots of our moments together in your mind. It wasn't long until our deep friendship fully developed into a romantic relationship.

2.  The photo of you gasping in surprise at the very first bouquet of flowers I sent to your office for your birthday   – Oh, this image will always be precious to me! How can I not grin dopily at your mouth covered by a delicate, manicured hand and your irises widening like an aperture in surprise?

You told me you never expected me to notice the bouquet of sunny yellow tulips that was your phone’s wallpaper, and then, have a florist create an exact replica of it as a present. How could I not show you, however, how much you illuminate my life in floral form? Of course, that was just the first of the yearly birthday bouquets. Every single year, when 19 July rolls around, I dutifully and happily sent you tulips to your workplace until….

3.  The photo of you enjoying a pain au chocolat during our Paris trip – Of course, I can’t make this list without including my favourite snapshot of the trip to celebrate our engagement six years ago. Whilst you’ve always adored our recreation in front of The Eiffel Tower of that Murad Osmann image of a woman leading her boyfriend around the world, I have always had a special place in the album in my head for this snap of you with your eyes closed, mouth stretched into a euphoric smile after taking a bite of the viennoiserie in your hand.

Of course, though, that adorable expression in the image pales in comparison to the face you make every time my lips touch yours, a portrait of bliss. The colour temperature of your blue eyes seems to go warmer, your smile, more luminous. I obviously feel the same way in those moments, as you know already. I’ve told you this many times before, but every single kiss with you feels as if the entire world has dissolved to bokeh, like a million flashbulbs were dancing on my lips.

At least, this still of a” pastry and you is a bit more private, I suppose.

4. A smaller version of our wedding dance photo – Oh yes, my favourite picture in the world, the one I insisted would grace our bedroom! Not even the work of Ansel Adams or Henri Cartier Bresson could ever top how this still captured the adoration in our eyes glued to each other, the radiance in your smile, the dynamic way we glided around the dancefloor.

The image of that day is still fresh in my mind, of course. As I whirled you in my arms, I whispered to you that from then on, you would be my sole focus, that I will always be there to take care of you and to support you. I vowed to be with you whether the hour was blue or gold.

I hope I….

Anyway, again, I really miss you. I'm excited to be able to hold you again, not just picture you in my arms.

Always know how much I love you, okay ? Know that even beyond my time on Earth lapsing, it will always be you I choose.

Always with a slideshow of you in my mind,

Your David

***

I gaze once again at the chrome-framed selfie of my Erica beaming before a camera, the portrait that I’m holding in my hands. As I look at the radiant smile, the bright red wig, and the sparkling blue eyes staring back at me, teardrops can’t help falling on the glass panel protecting the image.

Right, even if my throat feels parched, as if doused with photo developing solution, I promised my wife that I would be still. Damn is it hard, though.

“As you know, this was taken at the hospital,” I manage to sputter out, continuing the speech I’ve been giving for ten minutes before a crowd of black-clad familiar faces. “This was the very last photo of Erica before she passed.”

Five years of marriage --- five years of photographs, five years of memories --- that was all I had with the love of my life. One minute, everything was picture perfect, a clear vision of the future in front of us. The next minute, a year and a half passed by in flashes --- a sudden splitting headache cutting short a trip to Australia, an appointment for an MRI, the unforgettable image of an oncologist trying his best to act stoic as he announced that my muse and inspiration had glioblastoma, surgeries that cropped off more and more of her brain, my Erica trying her best to hold back tears when she lost the vision in her left eye. (She had always been the type to insist on carrying on, even at that point where her future was unclear and grainy.) It was all so sudden, so instant, almost like a Polaroid popping out of the slot in an instant camera.

The day she got the news that her cancer was incurable and she only had a couple of months to live, she had asked me to act as if she never received a death sentence, “to continue to smile in photos”, so to speak. She said she didn’t want the final images in her life to be me bawling my eyes until I lost the ability to view. As still as a snapshot, she began to plan her funeral, began to upload photos in the cloud she wanted us all to remember her by. She had always been like that, orchestrating everything like a shoot for a client’s products for her job. Two months later, the flash of her life went off permanently. Just like that, my life was hollowed out like an empty canister removed of its last roll of film.

After laying down my Erica in the coolth of the ground, to her final resting place, I walk back to my car. As soon as I settle in the driver’s seat, I retrieve a large scarlet envelope from the back seat. The moment I open it, my breath catches as I lovingly gaze at images of my four favourite unfiltered moments of my soulmate’s life, the same ones I’ve listed in my final e-mail to her. The tears I’ve held back for months finally escape me, as if someone had pressed a shutter button in my eye.

“Erica, Honey, it’s me,” I sigh through the waterfall pouring from my eyes as I slip in the key. “I promise you I’ll be okay. Just please tell me you’re still with me, that photographs aren’t all I have left of…”

But we sure had a good time

When we started way back when

Morning walks and bedroom talks

Oh, how I loved you then

Suddenly, as if it were a flash of light, I hear the car radio turn on as soon as I start the ignition. I can't help breaking into a smile of both light and shade as my mind flips through endless images of Erica slumped over a laptop, her blue eyes glued to a photo she was editing, this very song hummed filling the air.

No, the next months, the next years --- they won’t be picture perfect. There will be times the stills from our love story will replay over and over again and expose me once again to the knife-like pain of losing Erica. I wouldn’t have it any other way, though.