Geoff was my Geoff.
The words hung in the room.
This is how I introduced myself to a respectful gathering.
It was was on a quiet perfect Cape Cod Saturday at Quaker meeting house in early May. My aunt had just previously introduced herself as Judy, Geoff’s little sister. Joel introduced his words with, Geoff was my older brother. The gathering in West Falmouth was for Geoff’s celebration of life.
I continued…
They were “my” Kim and Geoff and this is what I called them, unlike my young peers who had Mom and Dad, I always had Kim and Geoff. Maybe because of this Kim and Geoff had always seemed more like my best friends and not like the mommy and daddy of everyone else.
This helped me feel special… unique.
In times like these, the death of your father, its natural that you go back to those moments in memory you hold dearest.
When your best friend lifts you onto his shoulders. And you soar above all and never want to get down.
I continued with wavering voice.
You go to the summer days in the car with the windows down and, and having your best friend turn up the music.
Loud.
And then, many summer later, comes the day that your best friend turns up the music yet again, this time its your music. And its somehow LOUDER…
I mentioned that had collected a number of other memories on my phone, but I couldn’t continue.
It was too hard.
If I had continued I would of told the gathering about learning to put the record needle on a vinyl album on my favorite track as a post toddler, barely. Have always been 4 going on 40? That’s what I tell people.
I would take out my favorite album, carefully remove it from it’s sleeve. You could never get all the dust off with the duster, but you would try. The record would go gently on the turntable and I would lower the needle down on the track of my first favorite song. The needle would maybe gently scratch and the analog hiss and crinkly-pop would feel like anticipation; then – Led Zeppelin:
In the days of my youth
I was told what it means to be a man
Now I’ve reached that age
I’ve tried to do all those things the best I can
No matter how I try
I find my way to the same old jam
Good times, bad times
You know I’ve had my share
I still chuckle.. That 4 year old… I knew good times, bad times. I knew.
I might of talked about Geoff complementing my great arm after I lobbed a weight with line over a high tree branch in our front yard for a Ham Radio antenna. This would be the closest we would ever come to that son and father playing catch trope.
I do remember humbly and sheepishly thinking sure my arm is better than yours… but you will always be so, so much smarter, but you don’t say these things when your basking in those moments.. I would never be able to write with both hands like Geoff. Or send or hear Morse code at the pace he could.
I remembered.
When he taught me the basics of running the Nikkormatt camera. I would look through the viewfinder while moving the F-stop and watch the needle move in and out of the brackets indicating the perfect exposure.
How can you forge in steel these critical moments in a relationship. In a life.
These purest feelings of understanding and being understood..
During those hardest of days I wondered was it him that led me to the following single word guides to my photography (or life)…
- Prepare
- Evaluate
- Exposure
- Focus
- Execute
- Rewind
- Schedule
- Develop
- Re-evaluate
- Repeat
Or was it Geoff’s example?
Today this first fathers day without my Geoff, I bring you this album of photos… It’s often the photos that get me from there to here. Without this photographic purpose it is hard to make sense of these things that just cannot be understood, when things seem so purposeless.
Some things are understood without words. These are 208 images that span from “diversion ahead” the day before Geoff left to Pandora with heavy head on my return from a final celebration.
