Pillar of strength

Hold me up
Montreal, QC
June 2019
This photo originally shared on Instagram

This unassuming pillar facing an unassuming parking lot normally wouldn't merit a photo. But this isn't just any place. It's the funeral home, Paperman & Sons, sadly familiar to any Montrealer.

Like anyone with deep enough roots in this city, we've been through here countless times. Sometimes for other families, other times for our own. We all have stories connected to this place, and as much as we never want to be here, it feels strangely comforting to have it in our community.

And as I waited outside with the kids while Debbie finished up the arrangements with the funeral director, it dawned on me that I hadn't ever taken a picture here.

I wrestled with it for a bit. Was it even appropriate to do so? Was I violating some kind of sacred yet unwritten rule? I had no real answer, but I thought back to my father-in-law, who always seemed to enjoy my somewhat irreverent approach to photography.

Over the years, I spent many a visit with him reviewing my latest work on a laptop or a smartphone screen. He always had something to say about every shot, along with recommendations of what I should shoot next.

When he was in the hospital these past months, I kept it up. I knew he was there, deep down, and I didn't want to miss a chance to show him something new and weird. He always enjoyed that, and I knew it brought him some sense of normalcy.

Which largely explains this pic, the kind of unassuming-yet-somehow-meaningful placeholder type of photo that he had always encouraged me to take.

Something tells me he would have liked this one, as well as the story behind it.

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