I will open this challenge with one of my favorite poems by Alfred, Lord Tennyson:
Crossing the Bar
Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea,
But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turns again home.
Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
When I embark;
For tho' from out our bourne of Time and Place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crost the bar.
So now for the challenge, which came about because of my desire to pay tribute to my mom, who passed away on December 16, 2011. She was my best friend in the whole world and I sincerely mean this. My mom was only 18 years older than me, and we grew up together. When she was 32 years old, she made the very bold and scary decision to leave my father, who was an alcoholic. She packed up us kids and everything she could squeeze into our car and drove 787 miles from Levittown, Long Island, New York, to Aiken, South Carolina, to start a new life for herself and her children. I was 14 and my brothers were 13 and 9. I don't know how she did it, and honestly at the time, I hated her for it. She took me away from everything I knew and dropped me into a foreign land. Only when I became an adult with children of my own did I begin to understand.
When she passed away, I was totally unprepared, as most of us are, because I believed she had an indomitable spirit and that she would live forever. She didn't. I miss her more than _________ . . . I'm sure most of you reading this and thinking of entering can fill in that blank.
Take that feeling and compose a photograph that is a tribute to your loved one who has passed on, and please explain what it means to you so that we call all experience its true richness and symbolism.
The challenge starts July 6 and ends July 13. Please tag as theme-memorial and post on this page. I will then choose the top 5 and voting will start on July 14. This is the first time I have issued a challenge, and I can't wait to see all the wonderful entries. I thank you so much for taking the time to share your photos and your hearts with me and my fellow 365'ers!
I will end with this quote from John Steinbeck in "The Winter of Discontent":
“It's so much darker when a light goes out than it would have been if it had never shone.”
@salza Sally - I think I figured it out. Thanks for letting me know. This is my first challenge and it's a learning process. I just figured out how to make a TAG!! :)
@linc To "tag" a photo, simply type the words that are being used for the tag (in this case "theme-memorial," but type only as theme-memorial - don't use the quotation marks. So when you upload a pic, there is a box at the bottom that asks you to use tags to help people find your pictures. In that box, type theme-memorial. Then after you upload the pic, go back and look on the right side and you should see a header marked Tags and if you tagged the pic, click on the tag theme-memorial and it will show you your picture along with everyone else who tagged their picture in the same way. Hope this helps!
Just spotted your posting Laurie. Your Mum sounds like a very strong and brave lady. You will miss her very much.
I will post something about my Dad soon. Sharing is a form of catharsis.
Good idea for a challenge!
here is my photo, for my brother, the bench in my garden that I often sit on and think about him.
Here is the poem my Dad wrote for Adam a few years ago, on what would have been his 27th birthday:
You will never be gone from my heart,
and all that is good in you will stay.
I will hear your voice in the wind at night,
and see your smile in the sun by day.
You've left me behind but you're with me,
you will change all my dark into light.
Your life is eternal in my memory,
You're my star which will always burn bright.
I'd give my life to feel your love again,
to undo what has been done.
I'll never forget the good times we had,
my life, my Adam, my son.
I wrote in the photo description why I chose to make this photo so simple, and what all the elements in the photo. I actually cried when reading through her memoir, I never think that I fully recovered from her passing. Here is a link to her memoir:
@handerle Hannah, I saw the picture. Thank you for entering. Just go back to the part on your picture and at the top it should say EDIT. Then where it has tags, type in theme-memorial. I checked your tags and you didn't put a hyphen between it. You need to type with the hyphen or it won't tag it that way. Thank you!! :) Good luck.
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I will post something about my Dad soon. Sharing is a form of catharsis.
Good idea for a challenge!
Here is the poem my Dad wrote for Adam a few years ago, on what would have been his 27th birthday:
You will never be gone from my heart,
and all that is good in you will stay.
I will hear your voice in the wind at night,
and see your smile in the sun by day.
You've left me behind but you're with me,
you will change all my dark into light.
Your life is eternal in my memory,
You're my star which will always burn bright.
I'd give my life to feel your love again,
to undo what has been done.
I'll never forget the good times we had,
my life, my Adam, my son.
Beautiful poem that captures what Adam meant to you all. I'm teary-eyed . . . absolutely profound.
http://365project.org/handerle/365/2013-07-11
I wrote in the photo description why I chose to make this photo so simple, and what all the elements in the photo. I actually cried when reading through her memoir, I never think that I fully recovered from her passing. Here is a link to her memoir:
https://mla.bethelks.edu/mediawiki/index.php/Petri,_Edith_Gerda_Franz_(1932-2008)
I did write a little segment about her when I first found out about her death, but I'll have to dig it out. If I find it, I will post it.