‘The Big Picture‘ is a beautiful short video animation about two very different adult brothers, dealing with the ageing and death of their mother. It’s a unique form of animation that is apparently created with life sized characters. In the story 2 brothers argue over whether to put their mom in a nursing home, and deal with each other through her ageing, and over her eventual death. I really enjoyed this piece- the aesthetic, the content and dialogue and overall story. It’s a very real portrait of a family struggling to deal with their ageing parent, sibling rivalry, conflict, who does the caregiving, makes the decisions, cleans mom’s body and much more. I love the quality and breadth of the videos Vimeo shares. This short has apparently won numerous awards throughout the US and Europe.
For me, watching this beautiful video of an elderly man singing to his dying wife in her hospital bed brings back memories of sitting by my own grandmother’s nursing home bedside. I’d hold her hand and stay talking to her. By that time, she was almost fully incapable of speaking but would every once in a while blurt something out that would so clearly confirm that she was hearing everything I was saying. Sometimes it was just the confirmation of her eyes, making clear she was hearing me. Other times she’d speak a few words that would surprise me. Sometimes I would kind of climb onto the bed by her side. Not smooshing her but half on half off, my torso by her side and head on her shoulder but off the bed from the waist down. I had a similar experience when my other grandmother’s sister was on the verge of dying. We’d flown in from Seattle to see her one last time, and she was laying in the hospital bed barely conscious. We’d been told she wasn’t speaking and had little time to live. Out of nowhere in response to our presence and speaking to her, she blurted out a series of words clarifying that she was right there with us. It was powerful and beautiful. She died shortly after.
Tell those who need to hear it that you love them and share your wisdom while you still can. These are some of the insights and encouraging words from hospice chaplain Kerry Egan. Egan has been on a national book tour promoting her new work ‘On Living Book‘. I caught her interview with Terry Gross and this short PBS video and at the heart of it is the opportunity that Loving Legacy Video exists to enable; the sharing of our lives, stories, ideas and experiences to better know ourselves and our loved ones. Her work is rooted in hospice work and speaking with people in their end of life but the sentiment is the same for all, that there’s no reason to wait to share your life with the people you love while you can. And especially meaningful for me was this list of 5 important things that dying people want you to know. Overall, I loved listening to her interview and went looking for more of her work. I’m excited to read her book as it seems especially relevant in the work of Loving Legacy Video, specifically for me that we’re not just collecting the familiar stories your friends and family have been hearing for years. While those are meaningful and valuable, it is in my experience the deeper questions about the life one’s lived, choices they wish they’d made differently, the parent or adult child that they wanted to be, and thoughts about death and dying that bring out the most powerful content in our interviews. Those are the spaces where you get a true sense of people’s experience, their values and what they at this stage in life see as most important and central to their own lives.
