What We Mean When We Talk About Love

When my husband, Jim Tanous, was diagnosed with metastatic cancer, I photographed him as I had for the previous ten years. At the same time that his life was ending, our two-year-old son’s life was unfolding. Our days conveyed an outward semblance of normalcy, but now a poignancy colored even the most ordinary events. Buoyed by Myles’s childhood-exuberance, we bolstered ourselves and tried to ignore the looming sense of loss.
Within a few months, when the effects of the cancer became visible, I stopped taking pictures. Then, two months before he died, Jim asked me to photograph him maybe because all along it had been a way for us to express closeness.