These photographs were taken the day of my Grandfathers funeral service.
Surprisingly clear day on Kauai, I thought it would rain.
The Church, Immaculate Conception Catholic Church. Great lighting. In the parking lot hung large posters about pro life and pictures of fetuses. I could feel the judgment and guilt in the parking lot. I only had two piercings in my nose and only three tattoos but good thing I'm already baptized. All this surrounded by kauai’s evergreen scenery.
My family slowly gathering, we were there early but not the first. My mom and I still needed to pick up her mom from the airport that was only 10 min away. I realized seeing both my brothers in the same place, it had been maybe 10 years maybe?
My Auntie made photo collages, a homage to grandpa's life. Old and new photos of the garden, his travels, the family.
My grandfather arrived at the church.
With white gloves my uncles, dad, and brothers carried grandpa into the Church.
The priest stopped at the door to say a prayer and through holy water at us. Just as I got holy water in my eye all of our phones went off and an obnoxious alarm sounded, not a car alarm but the one they use for tsunamis or tidal waves. My family seemed unfazed and the priest didn’t stop the prayer. At this point I’m looking at my phone, alert alert missile headed for Hawaii!
At the same moment my mom said now is the perfect time to go get my grandmother from the airport, kind of ignoring the alarms. So the stupid alarm is still going off as we drive down the road. We got Nana and speed back to the church. While I was extremely irritated at the thought of dying at my grandfather's funeral with my dads side of the family, most of them laughed and said at least we are kind of all together and at a church. I was surprisingly accepting of this response after my initial irritation. Not like god was going to save us in the 94 year old church anyway, what could we do.
My grandfather's casket was open at the center and my grandmother sitting in the pue at the front. She was so calm. After over an hour of overthinking how I would die from this blast and thinking death would be slow, the woman playing the organ and singing terribly let us all know the missile alert was a false alarm.
I could feel my grandfather laughing.
So I started to take pictures. At first I wasn’t too sure if my grandmother would like that but I saw my uncle taking phone pics, so certainly film photos weren’t going to make anyone mad.
The blue casket was open. The outside blue was darker, the fabric on the inside was baby blue. A light blue, cyan. Light laid right onto him. Bouquet of red and white flowers sat on the closed part of the casket. Star shaped lanterns hung from the ceiling creating a green and blue lighting.
Because of the false alarm my cousins and aunt who planned the entire funeral arrived late but just on time. The hotels weren’t letting anyone leave. We waited for them, they deserved to be there.
The service proceeded. We buried him.
We ate so much food and I got to see so many relatives and people that knew him. Seeing generations of family together.
It ended up raining just for a bit. Jan 14th 2018 his 90th Birthday.