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An Unexpected Glimpse

Into the Oblivion of Love

By Paige GraffunderPublished 4 years ago 6 min read
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Ocean City, MD 1999

I feel like this all needs some explanation. There were no smartphones in 1999, and yet that's when the original picture was taken. However, this photo, was taken with a smartphone, more on that later. Believe me when I tell you that there are four extraordinary things about this photo, probably more, but I have time for four. Maybe this will never mean anything to anyone except me, but I need to put it out there anyway. To me, this picture, this story, means everything.

My father was the kind of man who would yell and cheer when strangers cheered, not because he knew what they were cheering for, but because he loved to join a celebration. And the trip that this picture was taken on, was the last solo trip the two of us ever took. It wasn’t far just across the Chesapeake Bay, to the Eastern Shore. My uncle Pat had come along, and my friend Katie. We listened to music and drummed out rhythms on the cooler in the backseat. We never turned the AC on, we only rolled the windows down. We went for a long weekend, rented a hotel room off boardwalk, but spent all day every day we were there on the boardwalk, on the beach, having a blast. I remember my dad and Pat wanted to go have a beer, so we ended up on a boardwalk patio bar, and scantily clad shot girls came to offer my dad and uncle shots of something in glowing test tubes for a couple of dollars. They each knocked back three. My uncle Pat, a little embarrassed, but my dad striking up conversation respectfully with the girls. One tried to give him her number, and he said, “No thanks, I’m married, and I’m with my daughter but I really appreciate you hanging out with us!”

My dad was young enough when I was born that we frequently got mistaken for a couple, and that trip was no exception. I was 13, and awkward, and quite shy, and to have such an outgoing father, was a source for much teenage embarrassment. However, you’re not here to read about my teenage angst, you’re here to read about this picture and the four extraordinary things about it.

The first extraordinary thing about this photo, is that I as a 13-year-old nerdy kid was outside, at the beach with my dad, and smiling. Ask anyone with teenage kids, how difficult it is to get a picture of their tween and teenagers smiling. As the parent of a tweenager myself I will tell you, you might as well ask Pennywise to make you a balloon animal instead of murdering the children of Derry. And yet there I am shoulder to shoulder with my father, who was at the time the main source of my embarrassment as a human and smiling. As a brace face with horribly crooked teeth at the time, there is little wonder why my lips are clamped tightly together, but the smile is there, and it’s genuine. The photographer was set up next to a street busker, that had let me sing a few songs while he played guitar through that trip and had made a joke about me auditioning for Star Search. My dad had burst into laughter at the comment, and I, even at 12, was unable to contain a smile at the sound of my dad’s laugh.

The second extraordinary thing, it was a sunny and clear wonderful day. It rained every single day of that trip. We would walk down to the beach with all our stuff, only to have to haul it all back to the car an hour later because a massive rainstorm had whipped itself up. Much of that trip was spent, running down the boardwalk clutching Dumster’s Fries and dashing into Arcades and shops peddling cheap sunglasses and airbrushed t-shirts. But on this day, the last day, it was clear almost all day. Less than 10 minutes after we collected the picture from the photographer it started dumping rain without mercy, and we decided to call it for the trip and head home.

I guess, I should tell you at this point that my dad, the laughing vibrant man in this photo has been dead for three years. And there are days where I miss him so much it is a paralyzing force the likes of which I cannot contend with. This photo was lost for well over a decade. When your 13 years old you don’t always take the best care of your things, and my copy was gone before the beginning of the school year in 2000, I am sure. My dad and the woman he had been married to divorced about six years after this photo was taken and as is the way of things, important things sometimes get lost in the shuffle. Divorce can be ugly, and this was no exception. About four years his ex-wife contacted me on Facebook, and asked me for my address, she had found some things in the attic of our old house and wanted to send them to me. I gave her my work address and about a week later, a box showed up to my office. It was a lot of their wedding photos, photos of me when I was a kid, some keepsake items and this picture. At this time my father was still alive.

Which leads me to the fourth, and arguably most extraordinary thing about this photo. The original of this photo is less than an inch by an inch large. It is secured into the back of one of those kitschy little key-chains often peddled by tourist trap photographers. There is a lens, that you peer into while holding the tiny cone like device up to soft light, like a window or similar, and there it is. The picture safe in its plastic home, like a secret you only have to share if you want to. The photo you see at the top of this article was taken with my iPhone X, by holding the lens of my phone’s camera to the lens of this tiny picture viewer and snapping.

The year after my father died, I left my job, and packed all my things into a box, rather haphazardly. I got it home and when I started to unpack, I found the little viewfinder, the little memory. I heard so clearly in my mind the sound of my father’s infectious laughter, that I lifted it to the sun filled window and snapped the picture you see. In a moment of deep sadness for me, I was comforted by a person who loved me more than anyone has ever loved me, or likely ever will again. I was comforted by an improbably picture, taken on an improbable trip, of me and my improbable father, less than a year after he died.

So while there are no filters, no portrait mode, no beautiful sunset, it’s my favorite picture have ever taken with my smartphone, because it is of my favorite person, who never quite figured out how to work one.

Dedicated with loving memory to Stephen H. Graffunder 1965-2017

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About the Creator

Paige Graffunder

Paige is a published author and a cannabis industry professional in Seattle. She is also a contributor to several local publications around the city, focused on interpersonal interactions, poetry, and social commentary.

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