Fading Memory
Daniel Stewart's College Edinburgh
October 2018
My father was diagnosed with dementia in early 2016. As he declined I thought I should try and record him in some of the places that had meaning for him in his life. He was a pupil and head boy in 1953 at Daniel Stewart's College in Edinburgh before returning with a double first as a classics master.
The imposing Victorian neo-Gothic building with its crenelations and towers seemed a suitably dramatic backdrop since it was the foundation for his life and career as a headmaster. I am glad I took the few shots of him here and elsewhere in 2018 because all too soon even taking these sorts of pictures became an impossibility. He was admitted to a residential nursing home last week.
My father's picture will mean nothing to anyone else outside of our family. However, if you find yourself in a similar situation, it illustrates what I can only recommend: that you take the opportunity whilst you can. It may feel odd, morose or even morbid but persevere, time is fleeting and the decisive moments left, few. I am very glad to have even these limited number of pictures now since all my father's memory is but a memory now.
[PS I last saw my father on 8 March 2020, 10 days before Lockdown(I) began. He is now in a home and apparently well-cared for but his only family contact is my mother. COVID brings into sharp focus how photography can keep in mind those we can no longer see.]
[My father was finally released from his diabolical demented debasement on 12 October 2023, seven and a half years after his diagnosis. Death is never desired but of its many forms, dementia is a singular, utterly compelling dictator of the right to choose how you depart. The sanctity of life is patently facile when you see the person you love reduced to an unblinking, uncomprehending, uncommunicating, incontinent shrivelled husk of their physical being. My supremely admirable father passed away long before his body was finally over come. He would, with absolutely certainty, be distraught at his debasement and its impact on his most beloved and devoted wife of 62 years.]
Fading Memory
Daniel Stewart's College Edinburgh
October 2018
My father was diagnosed with dementia in early 2016. As he declined I thought I should try and record him in some of the places that had meaning for him in his life. He was a pupil and head boy in 1953 at Daniel Stewart's College in Edinburgh before returning with a double first as a classics master.
The imposing Victorian neo-Gothic building with its crenelations and towers seemed a suitably dramatic backdrop since it was the foundation for his life and career as a headmaster. I am glad I took the few shots of him here and elsewhere in 2018 because all too soon even taking these sorts of pictures became an impossibility. He was admitted to a residential nursing home last week.
My father's picture will mean nothing to anyone else outside of our family. However, if you find yourself in a similar situation, it illustrates what I can only recommend: that you take the opportunity whilst you can. It may feel odd, morose or even morbid but persevere, time is fleeting and the decisive moments left, few. I am very glad to have even these limited number of pictures now since all my father's memory is but a memory now.
[PS I last saw my father on 8 March 2020, 10 days before Lockdown(I) began. He is now in a home and apparently well-cared for but his only family contact is my mother. COVID brings into sharp focus how photography can keep in mind those we can no longer see.]
[My father was finally released from his diabolical demented debasement on 12 October 2023, seven and a half years after his diagnosis. Death is never desired but of its many forms, dementia is a singular, utterly compelling dictator of the right to choose how you depart. The sanctity of life is patently facile when you see the person you love reduced to an unblinking, uncomprehending, uncommunicating, incontinent shrivelled husk of their physical being. My supremely admirable father passed away long before his body was finally over come. He would, with absolutely certainty, be distraught at his debasement and its impact on his most beloved and devoted wife of 62 years.]