Grief and the Unspeakable Gift of Photos

"We know more than we can say."

That's a mantra of my dissertation advisor, Lalitha Vasudevan, and a big motivator for both her and my interest in incorporating media in research. The printed page is great. The spoken word is fabulous. But so many dimensions of human life, wisdom, and emotion are distinctively expressed in ways besides writing and talking.

I think of this mantra regularly, and it has been with me in especially tender ways as we grieve the death of Elke Saylor, Kristin's loving Mom and Fiona's dearly devoted Oma.

Elke died last Wednesday after several days on round-the-clock comfort medication. One of the first things we did after returning from the funeral home on Thursday was to begin assembling photos to display at the funeral reception.

It is holy work, as I understand now in a much deeper way.

Elke had what's called bulbar presentation ALS, so her speech and swallowing abilities changed first, followed later by control of her upper and lower extremities. In her final days, she had significant difficulty typing, which was the primary way she expressed herself in words since she moved in with us in late November.

So it was such a relief, and such an unexpected gift, to get to commune with and learn about Elke and her life through photographs, in moments of joy and silliness and quietude and adventure.

The photo at the top of this post is my favorite of the bunch we chose, perhaps unsurprising in light of my Brewers' fandom. I like that it's one of the unposed photos we chose for display. I love that there's a chance this photo was taken when the Brewers played the Cardinals in the 1982 World Series, which I only recently found out she attended with her husband, Les.

Elke lived an incredible life. She was largely raised by her grandparents after her parents died in a tragic car accident. That meant getting shipped off to various camps and schools to give the elderly couple a break. It wasn't a glamorous childhood, but she had stories to tell about it.

She attended the Freie Universität Berlin in the late '70s, i.e., a decade before the fall of the Berlin wall. Can you imagine?

And although she identified as a "homebody" later in life, and spent her final months living with a debilitating disease that largely confined her to our house, I'll remember her as the adventurous go-getter who started a new life in the States ...

who returned to Germany repeatedly in solo parent mode ...

and who showed up month after month during Fiona's young life with the most elaborate and creative crafts, toys, books, and games.

She was my daughter's favorite person in the whole world since practically the first time they met.

The days since Elke's death have included lots of the kind of labor you'd expect: disposing of medical supplies and reclaiming the house, preparing for the funeral this Saturday, and beginning the posthumous paperwork bonanza that I suspect will pale in comparison to what it was like trying to keep her supplied with equipment and medication in our grotesquely cruel healthcare system.

But there's no better icon of what this week his been like in the macro than those few intense hours digging through photos, telling stories, asking questions.

In the face of a shockingly sudden loss to a cruel disease that robbed Elke of her voice, then her independence, then her life, all I seem to want to do is look at the photos. I'm grateful that this too-quiet week hasn't asked of us much more than that.