John’s camera roll

It is hard to know whether looking at photos is helping or hurting. It's a complicated mixture of temporary salve and lingering torture.

March 2022

"Grief is a patient thief and steals far more than people who have never known it realize." - Alice Feeney, Beautiful Ugly

This afternoon, after Raffa and I get back from the farmers’ market, I sit in John’s office. I look through his handwritten to-do list, trace my fingers across his handwriting. I feel around in a light panic; I want to pick up and hold something tangible of him. Grief is a desperate, grasping thing.

I went through the camera roll on John’s phone. I did so on a whim. I had felt apprehensive, knowing it might be too painful. I also had a chuckle because his camera roll was so many screenshots, of articles and information, something Raffa and I would tease John about - so many screenshots!

Grief is a torturous thing, compelling you to look at images and videos of your loved one - getting fleeting feeling of relief when you do, followed by the drop in your stomach as you remember what you have lost. And what you must find a path forward to live without.

I find the selfies that he took, that he would send to us when we were apart or he was traveling. Those broke my heart again. I had already seen them, of course, as they had come to me as text messages from him weeks and months ago, even years ago. But it hit differently seeing them in his camera roll. It felt so tender and vulnerable somehow, in a beautiful, sweet, and deeply sad way. Seeing the selfies of his sweet, smiling face, taken just for Raffa and I, and the ‘good night’ videos he would send if he missed our FaceTime call when he was out-of-town.

Grief is an aching unfairness of these ‘good night’ selfies of which we will never receive a new one. It is unfair that John isn’t here with us, yet we do not get anymore selfies or videos to tide our hearts over. There was no better place for him to be than him with us and us with him.

I was honored to be John’s family. To create our little J+C+R family of three with him. To have had as much time with him as I did (22 years!), and as we did (12, with Raffa included!). With gratitude, I realize that for six years, half of Raffa’s life, John was home with us everyday - since late 2019 when we moved back to Denver from Seattle, and John began working from home, which he did from then on. No leaving early morning, no commute, no getting home late. He was working hard all that time, that is who he was, but he was close by, in his office. I could pop in and say hello or bring him lunch. Raffa could interrupt him to show him something or ask him a question.

Grief is greedy, clawing thing … but 22 years doesn’t comfort me when I was counting on four times that amount. And 12 years for Raffa, then the rest of his years without one of two people who are utterly irreplaceable for a child?

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I do feel compelled to share that Raffa and I are living with love, joy, and moments of light. While I’ve used this substack primarily to process and articulate my grief; this substack does not give the whole story.

I see the enormity of my/our grief as a measure of the depth of my/our love for John, which has only just begun to shape me. I am perpetually in a state of heartache and hope. Just as I faced the past year and a half, by John’s side, with determination and optimism, I continue to find comfort and solace in the people and parts of life that have always sustained me. Writing about the hardest, rawest parts here has been therapeutic; it is a way to clear space in my mind. It is a way to keep thoughts of John close.

But it’s important to say: there is so much more than sadness here. Raffa and I seek the peace I know John would wish for us. We continue to find joy in quiet ways - in honor of and in love for John.

August 2022