My grandmother is resting peacefully now. Loving me from afar as she always did; just a little further away, alongside my grandfather, and free from pain. She lived a long, hard, but beautiful life. She persevered. She survived war and poverty, conquered single motherhood, endured sending her son to another country, and the pain of old age. When we were a broken family, the love of this one strong woman always brought us home. And at the very end, all she wanted was to know that her son was a good father and her grandchildren were happy.

During one of my last visits to see my grandmother, my father asked me to take as many photos of her during her brief moments of lucidity as possible. I've been looking at this one photo over and over.

For a long time, I was hesitant about sharing this moment because it was so personal and could be difficult to look at for some people. But when I look at it, I see so many different elements; beauty, serenity, acceptance, love, and yes, fear and pain. These elements of life and the human condition that we are all bound to feel at some point, yet here it is captured in just one moment. Between a son and his mother, on the teetering line between life and death. A father in front of his daughter, suddenly just a fellow human being, fragile and vulnerable in our mortality.

When I ask myself, 'what is the meaning of life, why are we here, what is it all for', I know that I haven't the faintest clue what the answer is. But I also know, a part of the answer must lie somewhere in this picture, in this moment, between all of us people who can all understand it in some way. And I just wanted to share that.

I love you, 奶奶. Thank you for this opportunity to be alive.