Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2004/11/22

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Subject: [Leica] Taking him home
From: geebee at geebeephoto.com (GeeBee)
Date: Mon Nov 22 14:58:41 2004
References: <E729D72A-39DF-11D9-A36D-0050E42E6E0B@shaw.ca>

From: "John Collier" <jbcollier@shaw.ca>

Subject: [Leica] Taking him home


> A few years ago my father passed away. I photographed his wake and
> posted a few photographs to the LUG:
>
> http://leica-users.org/v21/msg11330.html
>
> ---------
>
> My mother decided that he would have wanted to be closer to his own
> mother: Sarah Emily Collier, nee Cole; or, as I always knew her, Gran.
> My father had spend two thirds of his life in Canada so it was decided
> that one third of his ashes would journey back home to Gran. The other
> two thirds would stay in Canada with Mum. A practical Irish rural
> upbringing bought out the measuring spoons and my father's remains were
> soon in three parts on the kitchen counter.
>
> Separation is a bit of a running theme in my family. In all families I
> guess.
>
> Gran had four children in quick succession before her beloved husband
> Thomas passed away from an infected ferret bite. The ferrets were used
> against the rabbits and, when the ferret's blood lust was up, they
> sometimes bit their handlers. It took him a year and a half to die and
> Gran always felt that the doctor did not bleed Thomas often enough. She
> never remarried and waited sixty years to join him. She raised her
> children, expanded the farm, raised her sister's children when she
> passed away and helped raise her grandchildren as well
>
> My father left when he was in his twenties. He and his bride to be, my
> mother, came to Canada because they could not afford to marry in
> Ireland even with them both them working. My father missed and loved
> his mother and it always pained him to be so far away.
>
> Gran's youngest loved and took over the farm as Gran grew older. In her
> last few years Alzheimers set in and she mentally abandoned her home of
> sixty years in Ballybannon and would occasionally be found trying to
> make her way back to where she was born in Tinrylan. Finally she had to
> be put in a home and it was not long before her body followed where her
> mind had long gone.
>
> As in all families where absent parents are loved and missed, the
> children are filled with stories of distant home and hearth. It is hard
> not to love a son who loves his mother so we children followed that
> path as well. Now we tell stories to our children of our parents and
> our parent's parents. Setting the stage so to speak for our children's
> part.
>
> Our family, but for a brother-in-law and a sister -in-law, made the
> journey home. He was interred after a regular Sunday service in his
> home parish in Cloidh. Friends and relations came from all across
> Ireland to stand by us and him that day.
>
>
> Before the Sunday service:
>
> http://gallery.leica-users.org/Interment/Interment_1
>
> Preparations for the Sunday service:
>
> http://gallery.leica-users.org/Interment/Interment_2
>
> Gathered around:
>
> http://gallery.leica-users.org/Interment/Interment_3
>
> And the sky wept:
>
> http://gallery.leica-users.org/Interment/Interment_4
>
> http://gallery.leica-users.org/Interment/Interment_5
>
> http://gallery.leica-users.org/Interment/Interment_6
>
> Fare-thee-well:
>
> http://gallery.leica-users.org/Interment/Interment_7
>
> I will post other photos from Ireland when I can get the raw scans
> processed.
>
> John Collier
>
>
> _______________________________________________

John,

A beautifully written and very moving introduction leading into an equally
well realised visual record of the 'going home'. The combination of the two
triggered a sadness in me, not just for the man I never met who was
separated by circumstance from his mother but also for the son that waited
seven months to develop the photographs.

Maybe it is inappropriate to comment on something so personal but I just
wanted to register the powerful effect they had on me. Thanks for posting.

--Graham



In reply to: Message from jbcollier at shaw.ca (John Collier) ([Leica] Taking him home)