Games Never Played

Today’s photo is another grave image from the local cemetery. This baseball sits at the base of a large granite headstone for a young boy. I believe it was left here as a memento in 1996, a conclusion I’m basing on what appears to be a “96” written under the part of the inscription visible in the photo. If that’s correct, then I’m puzzled how it has held up so well in the Florida sun and rain. Gifts like this seem to represent acts of healing; coping with having to let go. I get it.

In the months that have followed James’ death from cancer, I have more than once shed tears over having neglected to place in his coffin a photo of Skoshi, his beloved Siamese “shadow” (for she definitely was “his cat” and stayed inseparably glued to his side). I would also like to have placed the favorite book we had in common, Ellen G. White’s The Desire of Ages. (I know of at least 5 times he read it over the years we shared together and that he’d also read it several times before that.) I know that ultimately, I would have been the beneficiary of putting these items by his side, not him. Grief is a quickly mutating monster that operates outside of logic. And regret is a special hell when mixed with a large portion of shattered dreams and a splash of words unspoken. Shaken and stirred, you cope as you can.

“Games Never Played”, Nikon D800, ISO 200, f/5.6 at 1/320 sec., 300mm
Click for Enlarged View

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Photographing people, places, pets and ponderings.
Booking family, personal, business and pet portrait sittings throughout Central Florida.

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