The family gathered around my grandmother (invisible) resting on the bed.
Image description: The family gathered around my grandmother (invisible) resting on the bed.

This was in the early ‘digital days’. I was outside the frame of this image but I was too young to remember what was going on in the moment. It wasn’t her final day (or year), but we all knew the process had begun its course. Although I don’t remember, internally I feel relieved I could be there and that I still have a connection to these moments captured. It’s agonising to rewatch these videos and feel the emotional atmosphere through a lens but then this happy accident happens in the video where one of my cousins covers the frame for the rest of the video completely unaware. I appreciate the sudden invisibility, not just because of the relief, but it’s in that moment I’m reminded that my grief for her is physically embodied and no longer attached to the visual medium or its definitive capture of her.

White trousers with a silver chain covering up the frame of the video.
Image description: White trousers with a silver chain covering up the frame of the video.

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