Absence.

Every once in a while, I pick up an old photo or two at a flea market, or an antique store. I like old photos, and the fact that I don't have a personal connection to the thing or person in the photo doesn't bother me. Usually there's something in the image that catches my eye - could be simply the interest in the period dress, or a particular look in the face that is captivating, taking it beyond the usual "smile and say cheese" mask we all wear when confronted with a camera - at the beach, at a party. Often it's because the picture is one of those lucky few that despite the best efforts of the photographer to take a simple snapshot, rises into some sublime realm - a stray shaft of light, say, or perhaps an unintended overexposure that projects an unexpected mood into an otherwise moodless, purely documentary image.

The picture accompanying this post is just that kind of image - the quality of light, the reflection on the table, the candid happiness radiating from a young unspoiled face - it's just the kind of picture I would pluck from a shoebox on a dealer's table and immediately reach for my wallet.  No picture such as this one should be orphaned - I have to take it home.

The only difference between this image and the modest pile of others I have accumulated from flea markets over the years, though, is that this image is personal: this is my brother Ken, from 1965, when he was about three years of age.

I recently upgraded my scanner at home, and started committing old family photos to digital copy, and so discovered this image, which I don't remember having seen before. It is perhaps disingenuous to suggest that the picture stands out for me simply because of the aspects I described earlier - surely I must have seen the picture before, and yet only now it asserts itself, only now do I see in it something beyond the documentary snapshot that, truthfully, it still very much is. The qualities I describe are most certainly there, but the mood they impart is particularly poignant because this isn't just a picture of my brother - it's a picture of my estranged brother, by his choice departed from our family for going on now over 15 years.

I'm drawn to this image, stunned by it really; it is a picture of Ken from when I could not know him - I was born a few years after this picture was taken - and the frank happiness on his face is almost impossible to process in light of all the years that have passed and the accumulation of grievances and disappointments that have marked my brother in recent decades.  I do not know why the estrangement persists - despite my efforts to communicate, Ken has declined to explain.  Now, about four years on since I gave up seeking answers, I don't know for certain where he currently lives in the world, or even that he still lives.  For all I know the letters I'd sent over those last several years before I made a decision to stop never reached an address where he still resided; or if they did, that they were left unopened and disregarded.

It seems impossible to me that this is our situation, even as I write this and know it is true - a sense of  impossibility compounded now by this picture, this memento of a then far less complicated and troubled soul.  I want to be at that table with him right now, pouring over picture books of kittens, warmed by that slant of daylight, the whole day with nothing to do but be there, right there in that moment, to just be a kid.  

How do I get there from here?