Looking at photos of someone who has died.

 I know someone in the W-word category (and I'm sure she is not the only one) who cannot bear to look at any photos of her dead partner, as it causes her too much pain. Photos can bring back memories and you need to know what memories you are ready for.

I  find they bring no pain, and I often look at a big set of maybe 50 photos (I keep adding new ones) to remind me of all the life that Cro and I had together. 23 years; not to be sniffed at in longevity. I also listen to some favourite tracks of mine that seem to match some of the pictures (I might try to put a link at the bottom here).

So what is the relationship between the photo and the people in them? You must have had that experience when looking at photos of your own family going further and further back in time. If it is before you were born, then what are you looking at? Is it history? It's certainly not memory. But if you have a picture that backs up something that you had heard (father's wartime stories, the schooldays of your mum) then it is linking to a memory of hearing the stories. So it sort of is part of your own memories. 

The pictures I like to look at are generally very happy ones (it is in fact quite difficult to find a photo of Cro and me when we are not smiling, which I think is a good sign). But I am also quite concerned that I do not construct a one-dimensional picture of her by only looking at things when I was present. We loved being together, but we both had two legs and stood on them, both before we met and now, for myself, now that Cro is dead. Life goes on now, but life continued in full effect before we both met. 

So I will show you a couple of pictures I included to try to get a more rounded picture of who Cro was, in the round. Here she is with three generations of her family:

And here she is with her proud parents after graduating from Oxford, I think:

And I like this one too. Cro was extraordinarily practical and hands-on. When she was quoted a ridiculous sum for fixing a broken mobile phone screen, she bought the spare online and dismantled her entire phone, reassembled and fixed it. She was a completer-finisher, before the term was even invented. 

This is a glorious 'Me too' picture when she was about three years old and a younger boy came up and kissed her. The expression on her face is like "Is this going to become a pattern?"

And to finish, here is a favourite of mine, from 1999, the year we met. This was Cro's 'Zoe Ball' phase, but the leather jacket was a fixture through her whole life. You can't take the punk out once it is there. 

And for the tunes, this may or may not work : https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2Tu0Su1j63iFXxRjBl32nR?si=5227c222ad0b4d55

So, to conclude and to finish disputes as they say in the song, I know that pictures are not people and I know that the emulsion captures a little of the feeling but that the whole picture is the one in your head. But I also know that by sharing these photos on here, some of you will have been reminded of other experiences and angles in Cro that even I don't know about. And I am happy for that. And in a number of years time, if this blog is still accessible even when I am not, then other people may look at it and be amused or curious about her and about me. And you, reading this, will be keeping the memory green.