Of life and love

ERICA, 11, AND KAILEY, 6, pose with their parents for a final family portrait, the request that initially brought me to the Middletons.

What I learned from Eric Middleton’s last days

I didn’t begin my journey with Eric Middleton as a journalist. A friend of my boss had asked a favor — could he find a photographer to take a family portrait for a career Navy man who’d been diagnosed with cancer? My boss asked me.
“Sure,” I said. It felt like the right thing to do. I had no way of knowing where it would lead.

When we met in April, Eric welcomed me as if we were old friends. He was with his former shipmates at Huntington Park in Newport News. He was full of life, and I was struck by his positive energy — so struck that I asked if he would be willing to share his story in the newspaper. He said yes, and I spent the next six months documenting his battle.

AMONG THE THOUSANDS OF PHOTOS I TOOK, this is the only one I have of the two of us. It was taken during a dinner where I helped Eric to the restroom. He was weak and in pain, but when I raised my camera, he smiled.

Watching someone die is tough, but even in his last days Eric never lost his wit and humor, his positive way of seeing the world, his courage.

During our time together, he had just one request: that I not photograph his face after his death. I gave him my word.

Newspaper photographers are supposed to distance themselves from their subjects – be objective, don’t get in the way of the story. With Eric, I crossed that line. When he was in need and no one else was there, I put my camera aside. I held his hand. I drove him to chemo. We shared secrets.

Late one night, when he was in terrible pain, I helped him move from the living room to his bed. I knelt down and told him to hold on to my neck for support. As I stood up, I saw fear in his eyes for the first time. I told him how proud I was of him, how brave he was.
“Really?” he whispered, then smiled.

I don’t want to forget that smile.

Eric never got out of that bed. He died the next day, Aug. 24. He was 35.

After his funeral, I stood in the doorway of the room where Eric had spent his final days. It still smelled like him. Though I had known from the outset that he would die, it was hard staring into that empty room.

The responsibility to tell his story right weighed heavily on me. I feared the Common Ground series might not do him justice, that it might not capture the Eric I had come to know. I felt guilty for worrying about how his death would affect me. And had I ever really understood how hard it must have been for him to let go?

Maybe I had become too close. When I came to The Pilot, photographer Bill Tiernan told me this profession is a gift. It’s a privilege to be invited into people’s lives during their happiest, and lowest, moments. I never understood the true meaning of that until I met Eric.

I learned much about my own life from his death – about how my world holds miracles I hadn’t realized, how I wake up every morning to blessings.

Eric gave me the courage to hug tighter, and to say, “I love you.”