(The picture above is my father, John T. Stefano under hospice care in Rochester, NY, July 2011.)
I am not a person who really cares about the coming of the new year for resolutions and reflection as I tend to do that on a daily basis. Making plans for my future in my mind, short-term and now more often than not, long-term but over this past holiday season I was pondering a lot about my current work as a photojournalist/photographer, my aspirations and my personal life and how a few very significant emotionally draining situations and the loss of life have shaped who I am at this very moment.
The death of my mother, my friends and my loved ones gave me my focus as how I want to live my life. It helped me refine my moral center. I miss those people everyday. With the death of my father this past July, it was able to give me some type of closure on a very large part of my life.
I had a laundry list of questions about my mother and her life that I never had the chance to ask her as I always thought I would have had more time then I actually did with her… and with my father, it really wasn’t possible to get an answer from him given the man was an outstandingly complicated man to deal with.
I handled both of their deaths in different ways. I had past experiences dealing with death to allow me to be more grounded with the passing of my father but which was not the case when dealing with the lose of loved ones nearly ten years ago which was simply overwhelming for me to handle. Of course in how I dealt with these situations does not undermine the significance of the impact that these individuals had on my life.
Which regardless of the the type of interactions I had with them (my mother being more a positive relationship in my life and my father, a very complicated relationship that had a lot of negativity attached to it), both helped me find my moral center for which I have my respect for them in very different ways.
It wasn’t easy being the son of my father and I cannot imagine it was easy being the father of me, which is my honest view on the matter.
If I spend the next ten years holding regrets about the relationship my father and I shared then I will be bound to the past and I cannot simply live like that anymore.I miss my family but the family I knew and loved unfortunately died the day my mother did. It is simply something I can never get back and that is okay because I will set out to continue on with the next chapter of my life.
The possibilities will be endless but I am sure it will be one hell of a ride.
R.I.P Mom & Dad. Happy New Year.
