The Gift of Time: Meeting Eric Middleton

As a photographer, I’ve asked permission to photograph a lot of things. I’ve never asked anyone to let me take pictures while they die. That changed with Eric Middleton, a career Navy sailor, husband, and father of two. Eric had been battling cancer. After three surgeries and 14 cycles of chemotherapy, he learned in March that his disease was terminal.

We came together through a simple request. Eric and his wife, Geodee, were looking for a photographer to take a family portrait while he was still around. The only one they had was old, taken in front of a long-ago Christmas tree. When I first called, they were in Washington touring the Capitol on what was probably a final family trip. When we met, Eric told me each day felt like a gift – words that lingered with me long after.

If you knew you were about to die, what would you do? What would I do? How would we face such terrible knowledge? And how would our families handle those last moments together?

Anyone who has ever lost someone knows your life is never the same. There is a void that changes you, a bittersweet appreciation of the time you have left. The day Eric and I met, we hugged like long-lost friends. As I asked him to let me share his journey, we began a relationship like no other: I already knew exactly how it would end.