The chain of events that led to capturing the above photograph are harrowing. For a moment of cosmic beauty (Well, actually, 15 seconds of it, captured through a Tamron 24-70 USD G2, on a Nikon D750, at ISO 3200.) If you care for the moments that led to these moments, please read on - if you just care about the photo, that's okay too.
If you don't care about either, why are you still reading? :)
The news came on a Saturday. I was in the shower. My muscles full of exhaustion in the wake of a recent return from the gym. She burst into the room in tears. "Grandma's dead!"
From that moment, the week was turned upside down. Following that week, the whole month has turned upside down. It's been a little bit rough. This woman, a grandmother, the ancestral chain that led to the production of a woman I love, I had met on a few occasions. Grandmother Shirley was in her eighties, and lived well.
A death and a funeral are an incredibly stressful occasion for those directly impacted. When you must also travel great distances to attend such an affair - it is often more complicated, stressful, and abundantly banal.
Preparations to attend the funeral begun almost immediately. Commencing with booking return flights, employers were notified, bank accounts were shuffled, and bags were packed.
Monday was the day for errands. Tuesday was the day for flying.
Monday I was working.
Monday, the woman I loved left the house on her bicycle.
Moments later, the phone rang. She couldn't have been at the shop yet. She was gone for about forty seconds. I said hello.
Sniffling and painful wailing met me on the other end of the line.
"Where are you?"
"What happened?!"
Despair, desperation, devotion. These are all things that I felt in that moment.
I got out of my chair. I put shoes on my sock less feet. I ran.
I sprinted. This is not the story of a graceful, adrenaline fuelled sprint. It is the story of a wonky gait, track pants that don't fit so well, and a man prepared to run across a road without looking both ways. A man who arrived with his loose track pants closer to his knees than around his waist. This was not a moment for modesty or shame.
Her bike was leaning up against a fence. A stranger stood over her broken form. I looked at her face, and my heart broke.
The bridge of her nose was bleeding. There was blood on her lip, dirt on her chin and on her nose.
"What happened?"
Through sniffling, through adrenaline fuelled tears, she explained. As she transitioned from the road, to the footpath, via a driveway, the bike had hit the slight gradient between the two, skidding out from beneath her.
She was propelled forward, with momentum, and had hit the concrete hard. The stranger was passing in her vehicle, and had seen her on the ground, in pain, and stopped to help.
I thanked her.
The woman I love was in significant amounts of pain, bleeding, and unable to move her elbow or knee.
We had a funeral to attend in less than forty-eight hours, and here was the woman I needed to support through grief, in pain, with me having no idea the extent of her injuries.
I put on my steadiest voice and called an ambulance for assistance. There was nothing I could do but sit with her and wait. Once the ambulance officers arrived and everything was explained, I took the bike back home.
Nine houses away. I locked it in the shed, marvelling at the condition it was in, while knowing that there was a few things that I needed to do.
- Get back to her.
- Get her medical supplies.
- Get some pants that wouldn't fall down on the sprint back to the ambulance.
They waited for me, and we went to the hospital. Pain relief was administered, and we waited. We had told no one of the events that just transpired with plans stacked upon plans ready to unravel.
A funeral to miss, and an unknown medical prognosis to deal with.
Hospital waiting rooms are great for contemplating things. Normally, you are not contemplating things that are pleasant to do. You're weighing the future of someone you care deeply about with the needs of others in times of equal, and often, greater distress than yourself.
It wasn't hours that passed, but with a phone, and the ability to use it, the hardest part was leaving her in that waiting room (upon her instruction) - to go and do the chores that she needed to do, so that we could get to her grandmother's funeral.
I did this, and in a cosmic sense of goodwill and good luck, as I returned, she was called in for treatment. The nurses were magnificent, excellent, and fantastic examples of humanity. I commend them so very highly for their mannerisms, technique, and good humour.
Their treatments were professional - and saw to it that everything would be okay, when we described the events of the days previous, and the trajectory of those to come, they did a steadfast job of ensuring that we would be equipped appropriately for travel.
Spare bandages, letters requesting assistance at the airport - and instructions on what to do if a myriad of consequences played out.
None did. We returned home after some treatment and checks, and packed the remaining necessities. The next day we were on an aeroplane - but not after I got to push her through the airport in a wheel chair.
We were also greeted by a wheelchair at the other end. The connecting flight was slightly delayed. We got to our destination.
Family. Embraces. Alcohol. I excused myself from the last and instead took the car to a secluded spot with a potential future brother in law. We sat, we talked, we took images. This was just one of them.
We buried a woman the next day, and spoke of culture, death, and how very different life is on a tiny island.
People fade, the cosmos appears to persist, but it, too, will fade.
If you got through the entire post, thank you for reading.