Through My Grandfather’s Lens by Emma Childs
In sixth grade, I won second place in a school-wide photography contest for our local newspaper. The photo was a blurred close-up of a dewy, blue chicory flower in a hotel parking lot. I showed my grandfather my work, as photography had always been the one bond besides blood that we truly shared. He told me he loved it and I knew he meant it. To this day, the photo remains framed in my grandparent’s dining room. He died this past spring. We had been expecting it, as he was old and had a particularly nasty disease that left him with lungs that worked too hard to find oxygen that wasn’t there. He relied on a tank to breathe and for the last year of his life, his days mainly consisted of watching the birds make a home for themselves in his overgrown
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backyard. Then one day in late April, just as spring was settling into itself and the birds were finding their voices, he fell. And that was it. He and I were not particularly close. We lived ten minutes from each other and saw each other frequently, mainly for holiday dinners and family gatherings. When I was younger, I was scared of him and would flee the room when he’d approach me. A few years ago I found an old home video he shot on his camcorder. He’s filming me in the foyer, I can’t be older than three, four tops, and he’s calling out my name. You can see his fingers waving out to me, eclipsing the lens. I stare back at him, as if he’s a stranger, and run into the kitchen as fast as my chubby legs will fly.
