by
By Robin Givhan
The Philadelphia Tribune
https://www.phillytrib.com/
In the aftermath of a devastating event, photographs of the objects left behind by those affected come into view. Observers are left to make some sense of the images, to find meaning, to gain a flicker of understanding and, perhaps, to see a bit of themselves in those who’ve been lost. The pictures are part of the cycle of public grief.
There are sweeping images of buildings that have been diminished to kindling and landscapes that have been charred until they’re unrecognizable. Those photographs are jarring but distant. They become talking points for disaster relief, insurance claims and town hall arguments. The more intimate pictures of toys, framed family pictures and books are more troubling and harder to shake off. These objects help strangers — looking on from afar — mourn people they never knew. And few inanimate objects convey more about a person than a garment.
There’s a long history in allowing an item of clothing to stand in for the person. Perhaps one of the most famous examples is the display of shoes in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, a horrifically enormous pile of discarded boots and pumps that still bear the imprint of the owner’s weight, their physical presence still evident. The soles contain remnants of the streets they once walked. The styles remind viewers of the times in which their owners lived, suffered and died. The scale of the exhibition underscores the monumental breadth of the evil that unfurled during the Nazi regime.
But the images that have emerged from Texas in the aftermath of the Kerr County flood don’t tell a story of a sweeping and unimaginable tragedy, but rather individual sorrows, the kind that can haunt the mind of most anyone. The flood killed at least 104 people, including 27 from Camp Mystic. More than 160 are believed to be missing, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said Tuesday. The Guadalupe River rose in a part of Texas known to be at risk for flooding, in a rural area with sketchy cell service even during emergencies, in a time of climate change when extreme weather has become more deadly. As much as the tragedy was unthinkable; it was imaginable. And a nightmare came true.
How to tell that story? Respectful company, polite company, dignified company don’t show images of death, no matter the medium. While there are circumstances when showing the brutality of death may be the only way to jar people into taking preventative action, as some have argued in the aftermath of mass casualty shootings, even then, as a society, we tread cautiously.
We lean toward shielding people from the realities of death. To be clear, we see the dying. We are asked to bear witness to their strength in the face of pain and uncertainty. We try to lift them up with encouraging words and kind deeds. And we see the dead as they lie in state or as they are memorialized — in an open casket, surrounded by flowers and lavished with loving recollections by friends and family. But rarely do we see death, especially the violent kind: the fear, the unpredictability, the abruptness, the ugliness of the end.
Those photographs of garments may be as close as we can bear to come to the truth of that.
The size of a garment, if it is for a child, reminds people of how a life has been cut short. It tells the story of a lost future in which there would have been so much room to grow, change and mature. The logos emblazoned on those clothes are a clue to how someone defined themselves, the community to which they belonged, or the ideas and events that excited them and brought them pleasure. The choices we make about what we wear are decisions we make about how we want the world to see us. And even the youngest child can be stubbornly intentional about how they want to be understood, whether it be as a superhero, a princess or a magpie dressed in plumage of chaotic colors and patterns.
When clothes were photographed in the aftermath of the Texas flood, they were spread out on logs or caught in a thicket of downed branches. They were caked in mud. They were twisted and torn and looked as though they had been churned mercilessly by violent waters. And then the current released them, and they drifted ashore.
Sometimes, on the shirts, one could make out the names of camps that sat along the Guadalupe River: Heart O’ the Hills, La Junta. They were names of affiliation and family history, of growing independence and budding friendships. So much can be encapsulated in something as simple as a T-shirt, which has long been a blank slate upon which people emblazoned bits of their personal story.
The simple objects in the pictures stand in for complicated people. Sometimes they tell the story of how someone’s worst fears came true and how they miraculously survived them. The tattered T-shirts are evidence of determination and courageousness. But they can also tell us something about death under violent circumstances. They hint at the power of the current, the depth of the mud and the degree to which human beings simply disappeared without warning, their presence still imprinted in the misshapen stretch and sag of wet cotton.
It may be that the only way we can bear to look at death is indirectly, through the filter of inanimate objects. Not some sweet, handmade quilt that gave a decedent solace as they came gently to their last hours, and not some lovingly chosen favorite frock in which a loved one rested peacefully during visitation hours.
These are the clothes of upheaval, personal pain and colossal unfairness. They are clothes that can strengthen one’s faith, test it or utterly demolish it.
They are clothes that can make a stranger cry for a neighbor.
