. . . I have been asked a couple times by friends or family what my favorite picture is. There really isn’t any question in my mind. This is it and may always be it. Grandma was beginning to fall regularly. She hadn’t had a bad one yet but we all knew it was a matter of time. she was also beginning to get confused. I was living with them back then . . . . it was before they moved into “the home” together. One night after dinner, I told them I was going to a friends house. Grandma seemed like she wanted to tell me something but I was in a rush and politely blew her off. I told them I was leaving and where I was going and I left.
At some point Grandma forgot what I had told them. She thought I was still around somewhere and went on a search to find me. She doesn’t remember this, but the blood trail leading from the backyard through the laundry room and into the kitchen where my Grandpa found her, told the story. She wanted to tell me something, and thought I might have been outside in the pitch dark smoking like I sometimes do.
I can’t express how badly I felt. I thought of many ways I may have been able to prevent that night but all in all, things happen and you can’t always be around to stop them. You can’t always see the bigger outcome of the small actions . . . . like those that result from impatience.
Any ways, she had hit the concrete face first, fracturing some facial bones and required many stitches. Her cute little granny glasses got smashed up into her eye brow cutting clean through.
When I got back from my friends house that night all I saw was blood smeared around the kitchen. I knew exactly what had happened. I was there at the hospital that night when the doctor put in the stitches. My Grandfather always brags to anyone who will listen that his grandson is a photographer. The doctor smiled and said “go get your camera, take a picture of me putting the stitches in if you like”. My Grandma was bloody, shaking, crying, and all around terrified. I just didn’t have it in me.
I should have gotten the camera. It is one of the few regrets I have. I did though take this picture the next day at UCLA hospital. It was a lesson on love, and on stepping up.
So the reason this is my favorite picture is because it IS my Grandmother. No matter how cranky, wounded, or confused she gets . . . . she is always happy to see me. It is also a reminder of the picture I missed, and how necessary it is to document the saddest moments in your life and in the lives of others, if possible. They are far more important than the happy times.
Los Angeles, California
09.12.2005
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Also by Robert Larson
