My day blew up on me today. I thought I would be only a half hour late to my first class. I had to take my mother in for a hearing aid fitting appointment at 8am and needed to be in the darkroom with my students at 8:30am. I thought I’d get there by 9am. That’s what my message said.
My mom and I arrived early to her appointment. I had to talk her into trying the over the ear style rather than the smallest inner ear aids. The larger hearing aids have more microphones and can pick up more sound. The Dr. had pre-programmed a selection of them to match her hearing needs. As soon as she tried the first one I could see her whole world open up. She was amazed at what she could hear! She could even hear me whisper to her. She hadn’t realized how small her world had become due to loss of hearing. She was overwhelmed and emotional. The doctor explained how it would take time for the brain to handle the new stimulation and process background noise and distinguish which sounds are important to pay attention to. I thought m mom was going to cry when the doctor removed the sample aids and told her we would have to wait three weeks for her pair. I couldn’t allow that to happen. Fortunately the doctor was kind hearted and arranged to loan my mother the pair that had worked the best for her.
It was 8:45 by the time we got out of the office. I thought I might have to take my mom to work with me and have her wait in my office for a couple of hours while I gave a demonstration in the darkroom. That was until I got a voicemail message from the carpet cleaning company saying they were already on there way and would be there in 15 minutes! The carpet cleaning was the last stipulation I needed to complete before the sale of my mother’s house was finalized. I have been working nonstop for the last two months clearing out the home and arranging contractors to do the numerous repairs and replacements at the house. I couldn’t postpone because the buyers were scheduled for their final walkthrough and approval the next day. There went my day at work. I had to take the day off.
I guess I really knew I needed a day off to finish things. After the carpets were cleaned I had to load another 900 lbs of scrap materials from my father’s garage and take it to the dump. That’s 1800 lbs of lifting it in and out of my truck.
Among all the materials were numerous camera carcasses from when my father had a camera repair business. I salvaged as many of the parts as I could gather and donated them to our local camera repairman Ron Sinnot.
Wouldn’t you know it. One of my students from the morning class emailed me a link to a youtube video of an old film camera being restored to mint condition.
I choked up watching the video. It reminded me of the many hours I spent watching my father do this repair work as a small child. It made me feel a bit guilty that I didn’t learn how to do this work and that I was getting rid of all the tools, machinery, and parts instead of using them. I just don’t have that skill and I think I am too old to start.
It was interesting to recognize that as I was clearing out his shop it all made sense to me. I understood his organization and arrangement of tools. I could have learned how to do this work and the many other skills he had done. It wasn’t about me as much as it was about my relationship with my father that made learning from him difficult. I did learn photography from him though. I learned how to use a camera. I just didn’t learn how to repair one. Perhaps he knew I was more of an artist than a technician. I think I will go with that and leave it there.
