New Monday Photo Shoot #13: Non-Relatives

Let's move on to a photograph subject I seldom tackle myself: people.

New Monday Photo Shoot #13: Photograph someone you're not related to, who nevertheless matters to you.

The topic comes from a photo I took earlier today:


This is Eva. She is 102 years old. If she makes it to mid-May, she'll be 103. I met her on her birthday about four years ago. It was the day she turned 98 or 99. I forget which. She turned up at St. Michael's, having taken the bus there. Several people volunteered to pick her up and take her home after that, but I was the one who ended up with this pleasant duty, whenever she was up to it and not busy doing anything else.

Eva is a retired nurse. She's lived in a number of places, including Seattle and Alaska. She once traveled hundreds of miles by dogsled, while pregnant. Just today, she told me about a time while she was studying nursing, when she told off a Mother Superior for snooping in her dresser drawer. Eva won the encounter.

I hadn't seen Eva in several months, and had only gotten one call from her since we last met. Last weekend, Proscovia, the Master of Acolytes to whom I report when I serve as crucifer or torch, mentioned having visited her. Today after Easter Mass, I had an idea that it would be good to take Easter communion to Eva. As I was waiting to ask Father Smith for supplies with which to do this, my cell phone rang.

"Hello? Karen?"

I recognized Eva's voice immediately. Unfortunately, she couldn't hear my voice in reply. My Sprint phone has terrible reception at St. Michael's, and was in dire need of recharging. I tried repeatedly to call Eva back, but only got a busy signal.

So I went back into the Parish Center, waited for the tiniest of breaks in conversation between Father Smith and two parishioners, and said, "I need to take Easter communion to Eva--right now."


Bless him, he excused himself almost instantly from the conversation, and we went into the church for the communion supplies. He mentioned that he'd also visited her recently, but wasn't supposed to resume visiting the sick until he was well himself. (He's had the flu.) It wasn't until he mentioned Eva's room number that I found out she's in a nursing home at the moment. This is a woman who lived alone in an apartment until last year, and with her elderly, wheelchair-bound daughter since then.

So I went to see Eva, and she was glad to see me. Turns out she fell backwards, backing up too far. She's not walking at the moment, but they think she will walk again soon. Her eyesight is failing, her appetite's lousy and she pretty much feels that her useful life is over. And yet she's more on the ball than my mom was at 75, and still a joy to be around.

Your turn: take a picture or two of that special non-relative in your life, post it to your journal or blog, and tell us briefly who the person is. Then leave a link back here in your entry, and a link to your entry in the comments here. I'll be back in a week to introduce all these important folks!

Karen

P.S. I intended to write about Holy Week tonight, but two entries for tonight is enough! I'll get to it, probably tomorrow night.