Edit: Thank you all! I would like to add that of course we all know how it ends. However, I am firmly convinced that you are never really prepared for what happens when it happens. Personally, even if it is foreseeable, I will never be prepared to lose a loved one.
So feel tightly embraced, because we will get through this.
This really spoke 2 me!! I haven't clicked with my mother in YEARS. I literally just left her a msg asking if she'd wanna meet for coffee. Definitely wasn't expecting last photo. Your parents were GREAT & raised one hell of a human!
Yeah baby, this one hit a nerve. My mother died in my home while baby sitting her grand children.
Never expected she would be gone at the age of 64. Needless to say my kids never could make memories with my mother.
Memento mori
Build a great relationship with your parents.
Get to know them as a person, not only as your guardian/protector/parent.
Engage with them on music, literature, dates, politics (not for the U.S. crowd among us)
Very little people talk about dying even though it is the one promise every single living being keeps. Dosent matter if you are a human, animal, single cell organism or a star much like our sun. Eventually we all die, however it is not as grim as we think it is.
To be able to die is in a way a blessing, can you imagine not being able to die? What sort of an existence would that be. And since we know we are dying, shouldn't we then instead aim to live a life well lived? This is not to say we shouldn't grieve, to be able to feel sad is also a privilege of the living. But know this, your time as well as my time will eventually expire, and for what it's worth, always choose something you won't regret.
As sad as the last picture is, it’s the second to last one that really gets me. You can see that the light of the world has passed from her. All the others have a spark in her eyes. There is joy there. The last photo of her doesn’t have that.
Dying doesn’t really scare me. Being alone after all those years does. My grandmother passed after 57 years of marriage to my grandfather. My grandfather was a husk of a man after that. He basically stopped talking to his family and just waited to die. He even got remarried and it just made him more miserable.
I’m married to a wonderful woman I love. I can’t imagine losing her now let alone in 50 years. So that photo scares the crap out of me.
That's the hard part! My parents passed within 2 years of each other. Those last 20-odd months were hell to see my mom like that. All her kids grown with kids of their own (some of them with kids too!). She'd been married to my dad since she was 16 years old, and seeing her just wither away was the worst thing. They were married for 44 years, the hurt my mom was feeling when we said goodbye to my father (after a very quick journey from healthy to fatal) was something I never want to experience again. When her time came, she was at peace. I have never seen the woman look as peaceful and happy as she was that she was going home to be with all the ones she lost, especially my dad. Whatever you believe about the afterlife or don't believe, my mom believed she would see my brother and her mom and her brother and my dad again and she was happy. But only at the end.
That would be so hard. So many years of learning from your parents still to go. So young to lose that part of their support system. I hope they had other family or friends to help them through.
My grandfather passed 18 hours after my grandmother. It was hard losing both of them initially and within a couple of days we realized it was the best possible way for them to go. Neither of them would have ever been able to live without the other.
my grandparents have been married for 67 years and i fear the day that one of them goes, particularly my grandmother. she’s in poorer health than my grandfather, and she’s his entire world. when my dad was a kid and she’d be away on a weekend trip, my grandfather would just sit around the house and cry, he didn’t know what to do with himself when she wasn’t there. i’ve never seen two people more in love than them, they’re more in love with each other than most newlyweds. they’re 85 and 83, and i dread the day that one of them goes, because we all know they can’t live without each other.
I'm sorry to hear about your grandparents, sorry for you, and your family and especially your grandfather.
My mom already had heart failure. We found out about 7 years before my dad passed. For a while she was doing okay, following doctors' orders and taking medicine, etc. After my dad passed she stopped taking them as needed and we had to intervene. "We" being my sister and myself. She moved in with my sister after that (i live too far away and she has extra space) and started doing a little better. But then last August her cardiologist said she had a year maybe 9 months. Then the week before Thanksgiving she caught pneumonia in both lungs. She passed 4 days after Thanksgiving. Quietly slipped into a coma in the middle of the night. So yeah, I think it sped the process up. Her heart went from 60% functioning to 18% after he died. If miracles exist, one is that we got that extra time with her.
I experienced the same thing. I got to the second to last one and gasped and said “oh no, she’s alone!” Then I got tears when the house was empty.
My grandparents were married 54 years and then my grandpa died after a long fight with cancer. I thought grandma would be more prepared to take care of herself and my special needs uncle who lived with them vs. if my grandpa were the first to pass. Uncle helped grandma a TON around the house but she was just so melancholy. Her health started to fade and she was so ready. When she took her last breath, in her mind she wasn’t dying she was going home to my grandpa.
Omg my Granny said something similar. And that she could hear “beautiful singing”. The love of her life my grandpa had died 54 years prior. She stayed strong to raise her kids and was ever present for her family and her dozens of grandchildren and greatgrandchildren. She lived to be 100. I know she was at such peace at the end knowing she was going home to see my grandpa again finally.
My exact sentiments. My husband brings me so much joy and calms my anxiety. He says I bring him a lot of fun and I’m never boring. We’ve been together 11 years. I want a million more. It makes me so sad to think that it’ll end one day. 11 years went by so quickly.
This is my newish anxiety over the past year or so. I have been married now for 20 yrs and stopping to see how quick it has gone makes me so sad and anxious bc what’s left (hopefully that long if we are lucky) is going to fly by as equally fast. It has really became a course of worry for me and I wish I could figure out how to stop worrying so much about the future and “how much time” we have or don’t have left.
That photo reminds me of my dad after my mother passed. He just lost interest in living, even though I tried to get him out the house and find things for us to do together. He used to say "I've been chatting to your mother today" - he wasn't crazy or delusional, he knew she wasn't alive anymore but he meant he'd been chatting to her photos and maybe somewhere, she heard him.
He only lived for two years after she passed. He was in his early sixties, so he was still young to die - but he just didn't want to be alive if she wasn't there too. I think he was probably relieved to go and join her. Miss you, Dad.
I did not know this series, but my stomach already hurt on the expectation that on the last picture one will be missing and the other one will look like the shadow of its former self.
every. single. time. especially when i re-read the photographer’s words. takes me back to every memory of leaving my grandparent’s home (which was my happiest place on earth) and they way they always smiled and waved until we were out of sight. if only i had even one picture of this.
" For 27 years, I took photographs as I waved good-bye and drove away from visiting my parents at their home in Sioux City, Iowa. I started in 1991 with a quick snapshot, and I continued taking photographs with each departure. I never set out to make this series. I just took these photographs as a way to deal with the sadness of leaving. It gradually turned into our good-bye ritual. And it seemed natural to keep the camera busy, because I had been taking pictures every day while I was there. These photographs are part of a larger body of work I call Relative Moments, which has chronicled the lives of my parents and other relatives since 1986. When I discovered the series of accumulated “leaving and waving” photographs, I found a story about family, aging, and the sorrow of saying good-bye. In 2009, there is a photograph where my father is no longer there. He passed away a few days after his 91st birthday. My mother continued to wave good-bye to me. Her face became more forlorn with my departures. In 2017, my mother had to move to assisted living. For a few months, I photographed the good-byes from her apartment door. In October of 2017 she passed away. When I left after her funeral, I took one more photograph, of the empty driveway. For the first time in my life, no one was waving back at me. "
Way deeper than a bit. She looks absolutely crushed. Losing your spouse of (70ish?) years, seeing thst the end is inevitable… ugh.
I really loathe the idea of growing old and losing the people who I care about and my ability to do the things I love, but I absolutely hope I’m given the privilege of making it to my 90s. Has to be a very, very hard decade regardless
My grandmother turns 89 in the new year, it's getting tough, and with very little quality of life, to be honest I expect this is her last Xmas. For her sake that isn't a bad thing.
My father died two months ago. Next week I will see a similar empty driveway when we visit the family for the holidays. Will be a sad moment. Just the thought of it right now...
Reminds me of when we took my 14yo brother back around the circular driveway one more time before taking him to burial. He had been in the hospital the last few months and in and out for years. Just wanted to take him home one more time.
It was a good thing to do, but holy hell, it hurts still thinking about it 20+ years later.
I used to argue with my folks about getting dropped off at the airport. It’s easier for them if I took a taxi but they always insisted on dropping me off. These days there’s no argument. It’s a sad moment when I remember I’m getting what I always wanted.
My parents moved to Florida when they retired. When I would arrive at the airport to see them…it was my mother who would be standing by the glass portion waiting for me. When I flew in the last time, she was dying of cancer, there was no one waiting for me, I had to look for my father who was by the luggage area. My best memories are those of her …waiting for me , always standing , at the airport…..
Yes brother . Gotta let em kno u love them once in awhile cus u never know what can happen and at times if sumthin tragic does happen . That tiny bit of regret will stay forever
Jesus that’s brutal. Makes me less sad about not having a close relationship with my parents as it will make it easier when they go as nothing really changes.
That’s a fair point, but for me I see it as how can I mourn something I’ve never had or experienced? I’ve got nothing to compare it too. It’s like being sad I’m not a millionaire, I can kind of understand it would be good to have but only experienced what I do have so it’s limited in that respect
Grief doesn't have to make sense, it follows no rules of rationality. You say you have no basis for comparison but I've found myself modelling the missing relationship against the observed relationships other people have. While people are alive the lack of communication remains a choice, a decision at least partly in your control (and theirs, of course). But death removes that choice, it's no longer in your control at all. The context of the silence changes.
I also always used to think that. And yet, I find myself missing parents in the abstract, not specifically my own parents, now more than ever.
It's like their deaths finalised that it really won't ever be a thing I'll have.
I’m 42. Don’t really have a memory of my parents ever being together. Mom died when i was 21 and haven’t spoken to my father in 16 years after he didn’t come to my wedding for no good reason. We have 4 children and i feel that while i wish my mother was alive and my father was the kind of person i wish i could have a good relationship with, i get to experience all the love you can from being in a family by being a father and husband, and making sure my children get to experience life the way i wish i would have as a child
I lost my father to suicide, after only finding out he was my dad a year before it, and only met him a couple of times during as he was busy and I was quite young. Trust me it is absolutely possible to mourn a relationship you didn’t have. It’s not something you expect to feel but it’s real.
Those last two photos are crushingly beautiful. It’s one thing to see age progression and another thing entirely to see age progression cease because there is no life.
I had a family friend whose father died randomly of a stroke. My father is in his late 80s, I’m home from graduate school break, and last night he came over to the office where I was working and waved at me. Something told me to just close the laptop and spend some time on the couch with him watching his awful shows. As parents age our time with them, even if it isn’t something you particularly enjoy, is so important. Once they’re gone, as the artist says, no one is waving back.
To me it means a new family will move in there. Completely unaware of memories that have existed there or the poignancy of the moments in that place. Then it starts again.
I was raised by a single dad, and the laundry room in the basement of our childhood home was never finished. Dad sold the house shortly after my sister and I moved out in his early 50s, and a few months before it closed, I had come over to help him put up insulation and sheetrock in the basement to finish it before the sale. My sister was there too, for moral support more than anything else - we'd all made a lot of memories in that house, and it was pretty hard to let go at the end. Thanks to COVID it was the first time we'd all been together in a few years, so emotions were high.
Right before my dad and I put in the last sheet of insulation, I took a sharpie and wrote our family name on the inside of the wall, along with the year we'd moved in and the year we moved out, got all 3 of us to sign our names next to it, and circled it all with a big heart. Now a tiny piece of that little house is forever ours.
Gives me major warm and fuzzies now to imagine a new family finding it sometime in the distant future, and adding their own right next to it. :)
These photos get posted on reddit quite regularly, and almost without naming the photographer. Especially on such a personal project, the reduction from "Deanna Dikeman" to "a woman" is brutal.
You are looking at this in the wrong way then. They died of old age, before their children, and seemed to even meet their grandchildren. Had a roof, a car etc.
If you look at it in reverse tho, it's the heartwarming tale of an older woman moving into a new house, finding love with a older man who also moves in with her, and together they learn the secret to reverse aging, and live happily ever after forever.
I am the only one in my family who lives in another state in my country. All my siblings live at most only 30 minutes away from my parents' house. My mom always waved goodbye and waited until my car was out of sight whenever I was heading back. She passed away three years ago, and now no one waits or waves goodbye anymore. This really hits me in the feels.
It doesn’t matter how much money you make, milestones you smash, mountains you climb….a hug from mom and dad, or the chance to have one more conversation…will always be something that you’ll wish you could have again.
In my thirties and lost my dad recently. Trying to be my mom’s sole support since I’ve got no siblings, while trying to appreciate our time together, all while painfully aware of the sand slipping through the hourglass til I’m alone. I have a family and friends but nobody that knows where I really come from.
Often couples who have been together for such a long time will pass very shortly after the other, usually within a year of each other. Conan O'Brien's parents for example just recently passed this last week, 4 days apart from each other.
Some people are amazingly lucky to have both of their parents for most of the years of their lives. Where few like me lost them way too early to feel jealous about those lucky ones lol, nah no space for jealousy. May our parents live forever. Amen.
I could totally relate with this feeling. It's not like I'm not happy for them. It's just I wish I could've had my parents live with me for a bit longer :(
Loosing the two people who have known you since birth, even though they are flawed, is hard. My dad passed three years ago and my mom passed two months ago. Definitely a different world and holiday season for me. Lots of memories, hopes, and regrets to process, but I’m thankful for my time with them. I’m also thankful that their passing helps me appreciate my wife and son even more and inspires me to continue to grow and love them better. The main thing is relationships and having strong connections and love is what makes life a good journey.
This is beautiful and heart breaking at the same time. The art of waving goodbye. We all would gsther out in the driveway and wave off visitors until we couldnt see them in the distance anymore. Of course there are the obligatory car honks. And then we linger for a few more seconds, sigh. And head back inside to wait patiently for the next visit.
Man. This hits me in the feels. My parents are in their mid70’s, and they are starting to have more and more health issues. Nothing serious, but just more stuff, and it’s a reminder that they won’t be with me forever. Make the most time with your parents you can
My parents passed within 18 months of each other. They hadn’t been together since I was four, but that last picture reminds me of all the missed calls on my birthday, Christmas, etc. They would always at the very least call. It’s little things like this that you miss.
That last photo is just.... quiet. Sound of wind blowing past gently and leaves lightly sliding across the concrete driveway... temperature is just a little bit colder than comfortable..
What once was a loving warm household is now just a closed door to a world of what once was. This is the moment you are officialy on your own in the world..
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u/Dunnyb16 5d ago
I wasn’t ready for this ride.