Oratory. Longshot.

Where life once was
Montreal, QC
January 2019
This photo originally shared on Instagram

My father-in-law's hospital room overlooks the interior courtyard of a number of buildings, old and new. No one walks into this forbidding place unless they're certified to repair the witches brew of HVAC equipment that dots the asphalt-pitched roofing below. There is no view to speak of here.

Yet if you stand in the far corner of his room and look out just so, you'll catch a glimpse, way in the distance, of St. Joseph's Oratory looming above St. Mary's Hospital, a snippet of skyline in a place you'd think had none to offer. You have to know it's there, and even then stealing a glance out the window is difficult to justify given what's happening just inside it.

This scene is rich with family and personal history. The oratory is Canada's largest church, whose steps I used to climb, again and again, when I lived in the neighborhood and needed challenging places to run. The hospital below it is where our eldest son was born. This is the view that greeted me when I was a child and stayed in the same hospital my father-in-law is in now.

But none of that mattered on this early morning, as I noticed the glint of winter light off the brick and stole the moment as we took over from the night attendant - and as my wife did what she could to ease the fears of a man whose mind no longer commands the room as it once did. He's never seen this view, and as I took it in, I wondered if he'd even recognize it if I showed it to him on my phone. Likely not, but I'll never know if I don't at least try.

I don't know if it's even appropriate to be shooting here. But something tells me I need to, because the stories we tell now will eventually be all that's left.

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