Photos

Black & White

Recently I was getting ready to head to the U.K. for a five-day seminar.

Before leaving, I showed the webpage announcing the program to a Chinese student at my residence.

As he scrolled the webpage, a concerned expression spread across his face.

“Why are these photos black and white?” he asked nervously, perusing the headshots and bios of faculty and fellows.

“Just for branding and aesthetic,” I shrugged. “Why?”

“In China, black and white photos indicate the person has died,” he explained to me.

Ah, I realized.

No wonder he had looked so startled upon seeing my black and white headshot on his laptop as I sat across from him.

“I should be dead, so what’s the worst that can happen?”

Recently, I spoke with Ottawa resident Darryl Sequeira about his near-death experience fifteen years ago.

In September 2005, Darryl was a 20-year-old university student in Saint John, New Brunswick.

He got drunk at a party one night and was passed out in the back seat of the car of a friend’s friend.

Unbeknownst to Darryl, the driver was also drunk and so, “It was the wrong car to fall asleep in.”

When the drunk driver crashed, the driver broke both his legs, the front seat passenger broke his right arm, the guy to Darryl’s left broke his left arm and the guy to Darryl’s right managed to get just a few cuts and bruises.

Because Darryl had been the only one asleep in the vehicle, he suffered the worst consequences. The car flipped over three times and he flew forward.

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Sketching Memories

On my iPhone, I have 33,250 photos.

Yesterday, when reading Janusz Korczak’s Ghetto Diary, I came across a section in which Korczak is conversing with a well-known painter who says to him:

“Everyone should know how to sketch in pencil what he wants to retain in memory. Not to be able to do that is to be illiterate.”

I read this sentence over and over again, and thought about it. I have 33,250 photos on my phone and only one of them is, in fact, an image of something I sketched in pencil.

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Gifts for the Dying

Below is a piece of fan mail for this blog, which came from my mother. Since she has accompanied several persons in beautiful ways before their deaths, she shared with me this list of Gifts for the Dying.

One person for whom my mom cared deeply and to whom she showed great affection was her brother-in-law’s mother, Mrs. Hall.

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