Good Grief: Using Art to Process Loss

I took this photo in Jeanne-Mance park at 4:45am on July 22nd accompanied by a dog named Pearl and a friend named Tom. At the time, I was 2 weeks into an indefinite stretch of sobriety that would end up lasting 5 months. For the last year I had been drinking quite heavily and often. The summer prior I lost my father to a very short battle with cancer. He had raised my siblings and I almost single handedly since 1998 when my mother passed away so needless to say, it left a big hole in my heart. A hole I had spent a year trying to fill with alcohol although it all just washed right over. A year had passed and I was no closer to closure. I had numbed myself to the point it may as well have happened a week ago. I didn't really feel anything but I knew I didn't feel good. I needed to make a change.

On July 8th I made the decision that I wanted to feel again. I wanted to make art, to feel inspired, feel the beauty of life, feel happy, feel sad, mad, angry and anything else just as pleasant or unpleasant. Just to feel. I stopped drinking and started writing every morning. Writing about life, my emotions, my plans, people I care about, people I missed and photos I'd like to take. That was one thing that constantly came up, the camera on my shelf that sat relatively unmoved in the last year. I decided I would bring it with me as often as I could. Even if I didn't take a shot all day it would be in my bag. And if it did come out of the bag I'd shoot anything. Friends, buildings, bicycles, trees blowing in the wind, strangers in the streets and the night sky. I was seeing beauty in the world again and it was like colour was coming back into a grey world. I sent a couple photos to friends but for the most part I was taking photos just to take them.

It was time to take a shot that I'd been thinking about for a while. A difficult and unique shot where I'd line up a full moon with the cross on top of Mont-Royal. I'd mix a local landmark with something everyone on the planet has seen and juxtapose 2 iconic symbols of religion and science. I had never done anything like that and I could feel the excitement of having this new challenge in my life. After doing some planning I worked out when and where I'd need to be on the night. A kilometer away from the cross at 4:45am in Jeanne-Mance park.

The night of the 21st I got home after work at about 11pm and decided to have a cup of coffee and stay up. Tom joined me at about 2am and at 4 we walked to the park with Pearl. For 40 minutes we watched the sun descend as slow as molasses. It didn't seem to be moving through the night sky at all until the last 5 minutes which passed in the blink of an eye. I ran around the small field, planted my tripod and hoped for the best. And then it was all over.

When I arrived back home at 5:30 I had already seen the image on the back of my camera but it paled in comparison to seeing it full screen. I took some time to process the image as the sun came up and filled my living room with light and warmth. The image turned out just as I had imagined it, if not better.

I spent a good 20 minutes just looking at the photo until I thought to myself "I wish I could show my dad this." And finally I cried, while sober, for the first time since he left. It felt amazing.

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