Love is why we do a lot of the things we do. How we build our relationships with people is based on the love we are taught growing up by observing the people in our immediate lives, our parents, our aunts and uncles, and our grand parents.
The love that is taught from generation to generation, parents to children, over and over through the generations. This love crafts us into the people we are, teaches us to be modest, to care for others even people we don’t know. It teaches us compassion for others, right from wrong, and gives us the ability to lead lives looking to help and not to hinder.
In my life I have had many incredible people to learn from, most importantly my parents. They are best friends, the types that would sacrifice themselves if it meant saving the other. Sure as we all know relationships are never perfect, no one ever expects them to be, but they have always stood beside each other, there has never been the thought of “quitting” as people in relationships built on love never do.
This is a storey about my mom’s parents who in the same respect showed her what love is. Last spring we lost my grandma, she had been sick for a very long time, but she never quit. When she fell ill my grandpa suddenly was thrust into the position of being her caregiver in the sense of cooking, cleaning and showing her love everyday in a way he hadn’t had to do before. When my grandma passed away my grandpa’s heart broke. They had lived through World War 2, moved across the ocean from Holland to Canada to build a life, and a family. They raised four children, and lived and loved together for 58 years, and in that instant his constant for most of his life was gone.
This past Sunday on Mother’s day, my grand father passed away very suddenly while here in Manitoba visiting my parents. He had come back with my parents from Ontario about two weeks ago on a road trip from southern Ontario stopping at spots him and my grandma would stop on the way to come visit my family every September. I can’t say for sure because I wasn’t there, but it probably helped to connect him to her, to feel her spirit again, to be in those places he had shared with her.
As soon as I heard the news from my parents on Sunday morning, we were on the road to be with my parents. Needing that closeness of family, and that feeling of love, and safety you can only get from your family. While there we took a few minutes to flip through photographs of my grandparents through out their lives, suddenly really hit home about the real importance of why we do the job we do.
To photograph weddings, and peoples lives, its about capturing love, and something for people to hold to when thats all they have left. Photographs are pure and simply our history. Its not about glitz and glam and perfection, its purely about love. Those perfect snapshots we all marvel over from a day gone by are those perfect imperfect moments, pure and simple. Its having that responsibility of helping create someones history, and to help also bring comfort to people later in life when all they have left are photographs.
Looking at photographs of my grandparents, I can feel their love. Its a love that lives inside of me, that was passed to my mom, shared with my dad, passed to me, and what I get to pass on in my family. Though my grandma has been gone for 14 months, and now my grandpa for 3 short days, I know at least that what they started, will still live long after I’m gone. Thank you grandma and grandpa for being the amazing people you were, strong, loving, and for having the bravery in life to travel to Canada and start this amazing family I get to be a part of.
Thanks for taking the time to read this.
Jake.
