I hesitate each time I include personal content on this blog. Its original intent was to keep me motivated to photograph for pleasure on a more regular basis, something that it has definitely helped me with. However, a lot of the traffic on the site is also family and friends, checking in to see what I'm up to. So, today, I am going to use this entry to write about someone I want you to remember - my friend, Louise Gonsalves.
Given that this is a photography blog, I'm going to use the context of one of my favourite images to tell the story.
Louise lost her battle against cancer two years ago today. I remember when I received the call, I was beside myself for missing her last day. I had returned to Toronto from Cambridge to start packing for my relocation to Kelowna. There was so much going on at the time, it was difficult to know what to do, where to be, what was going to happen next. When I hung up the phone, I paced around my apartment in circles, waiting for the train wreck to happen. When it didn't, I sat down at the same laptop I'm writing on now, and wrote Louise a letter. I felt like I was communicating with her directly. When I re-read the letter tonight, I am surprised at how closely I described my feelings, for I now know that I was in shock at the time.
When Louise died, I not only lost a "best friend", I lost the biggest fan of my photography. Six months earlier, I had photographed her wedding and family portraits, a bitter-sweet experience, as that was when we all realized her illness had advanced much further than she had been letting on. Over the course of her funeral, I was reminded by her relatives how much we used to push each other as children - in school and in sports. Looking back I realize that as adults, our support of each other in our respective businesses and creative pursuits was the mature version of our school-yard, sidewalk and bus-stop antics. I know she would have been a regular reader of this blog and been after me when I fall behind my weekly commitment.
I have missed Louise incredibly over the course of the past two years. It has been very difficult to not be able to pick up the phone whenever I please. The moments when I feel somehow connected to her have been few and far between, but they have been important and I hope there will be more of them.
The moment I squeezed the shutter on the image I chose to go with this entry was one of those too rare occasions. I was en route to Kelowna, with my dog and cameras packed in my car. It was my last night on the road and probably the first time I stopped to take a breath in the whirlwind following Louise's death, and selling or packing everything I owned. The irony that I was at Lake Louise was not lost on me then, nor is it now.
Exhausted after four days of driving, I had left Brandy in the hotel room and went for a walk to the village. The sun was obscured by heavy cloud, but I stopped and sat on a bridge railing at the side of the road, facing west. The moment I let my mind go quiet and thought of Louise, the sun burst out from behind the clouds, sending rays of light in all directions. I don't remember whether I had my camera with me or not - that moment was just for me, and it made me feel like everything was going to be all right. I went to bed early, ready for my last day on the road to my new home.
The next morning, my alarm went off before 5 am. I had set it the night before, intending to head up to the lake and see what I could do with my camera before hitting the road for the last day long drive. I was bone tired, and pushed the snooze button at least once before I heard this familiar voice in my head say "Well, you're not much of a photographer if you stay in bed - for God's sake, you've got one morning and you're at Lake Louise!"
That was all the encouragement I needed. I was out of bed like a shot!
I miss you Lou; we all do.
(I have posted my original letter from May 23, 2005, read at Louise's funeral, and a few pictures here: Friends for Life )
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