My grandpa’s old cat, Molly, died tonight. She just died from old age, she hadn’t been sick. She was 19 years old and had outlived grandpa by more than a year. She was born to one of grandpa’s other cats when I was in high school, and I wanted to take her home but my parents wouldn’t let me back then. She stayed there and ended up being his only cat for several years.
A lot of people thought that she was evil. She’s known to have killed at least two rattlesnakes (yes, there are rattlesnakes in Indiana!), and she has attacked several large dogs. She used to pile up big heaps of dead mice next to grandpa’s house. She loved me though. She would run out and rub all over me every time I visited, unless I had pissed her off the last time I saw her by feeding the dog, or petting him. She didn’t like to share. I miss her. My big orange cat, Simba, is Molly’s nephew. Molly’s sister was Simba’s mom.
See more photographs of Molly and Grandpa.
One of the little kids in the family made this tiny drawing of Grandpa and his house, which I found hanging on the big window in his living room by a suction cup hook. I photographed this on January 4, a few weeks after he passed away.
See more photographs of my grandpa, Charles Crawford, and his house.
I made this photograph of the dining room in my grandpa’s house a couple months after he passed away. The family had taken most of the stuff out of the room, leaving only this chair with a broken leg, and the curio cabinet where grandma’s collection of banks was displayed. The wall is covered in drawings by grandpa’s ten grandchildren, including several things that I made more than 25 years ago.
See more photographs of my grandfather and his house
For several weeks after grandpa died, Molly laid in this window in his kitchen almost continuously. She looked out the window most of the time, or she slept.
See more photographs from Grandpa’s house.
In the last months of his life, Grandpa’s old cat, Molly, spent most of her time laying across his lap. He would sit for hours on the sofa petting her. Since he passed away 3 weeks ago, she has mostly sat in the kitchen window looking outside, when she wasn’t sleeping.
See the rest of my photographs of my grandfather, Charles Crawford.
This is Grandpa’s old white dog, Apollo. He is a German Shepherd mix. Grandpa got him about 8 years before he died, and he loved that dog. Apollo wasn’t the world’s most intelligent dog. The cats terrorized him incessantly, and he never seriously tried to put them in their places. He was devoted to Grandpa though, laying at Grandpa’s feet almost constantly until Grandpa died. The day Grandpa died, Apollo jumped up on the bed and stayed with him until the funeral home came to take Grandpa’s body. That night, Apollo and the two formerly evil cats slept cuddled together in the room where Grandpa died.
See the rest of my photographs of Grandpa and his pets.
This is one of the last photographs I made of my grandpa. It was made back in March. The last photos I did of him were the ones of him reading the newspaper a month later. After he died, I looked for the negatives for this photograph, and when I looked it up in my notes, I realized that I had not made any new photographs of him after April. That seems to be the last time he was really able to talk to me when I went to see him. After that, he was usually laying in bed and sitting in the living room, but unable to talk or understand much. I didn’t feel right taking pictures of him when he couldn’t understand what I was doing. He was 83 when I made this photograph.
See the rest of my photographs of Grandpa.
The Fort Wayne Photographers exhibit at the Artlink Gallery in Fort Wayne, Indiana includes one of my photographs, “Grandpa and Apollo”.
I was pleasantly surprised to see my photograph talked about and published in the review of the show in the Fort Wayne Reader, a local arts and entertainment newspaper. I’ve excerpted the part of reviewer Dan Swartz’s article that talks about my work below:
“Christopher Crawford also presented a beautiful photograph, entitled “Grandpa and Apollo,” which is fulfilling on many different levels. First, Crawford’s photography is superb from every technical sense. This is very important in any judgment of a photograph; although it may be an art form, open for subjective interpretation and opinion, it also has roots in science and design. Crawford mixes the two in a captivating way in this image, one that I enjoyed initially, and found myself constantly coming back to. The second reason for this piece’s success is its lack of pretension. Not titled “My deepest despair” or some other histrionic phrase, “Grandpa and Apollo” is “just” an image of an elderly man looking out a window with his dog. Yet this simple image becomes very moving and quite emotional through the lens of a talented photographer.
The simplicity really carries this image far. It shows, in a great way, how truth has a great deal to do with great art. While many times artists will use hyperbole or overly dramatic concepts and processes to propel art, many times they can just as easily find that great shot of an everyday event which carries so much meaning to the viewer when correctly paired with beautiful technical capacity.”
You can read the entire review of the Fort Wayne Photographers exhibit on the Fort Wayne Reader’s website.
My grandfather, Charles Crawford, died this afternoon after several years with Alzheimer’s disease. He was 84 years old. He has been sick for a long time, but it doesn’t make it easier. I’ll miss him.
This is grandpa and his old cat, Molly. I made this photograph back in 1999, when he was still very healthy. Molly is still with us, she is about 18 years old now. I have been photographing grandpa for many, many years. I have only a small part of those photographs of grandpa on my website so far, but I will add more in the months ahead.
My grandfather, Charles Crawford, has suffered from Alzheimer’s disease for more than two years now. Sometimes he doesn’t recognize me when I visit, and cannot talk coherently. Other times he is alert and talkative. On the 26th I stopped by and found him laying on his sofa reading the newspaper. He asked me why I wasn’t driving my Chevy Caprice (I was using my girlfriend’s car). He gave me the car several years ago and always asks me if I still have it.
See more photographs of my grandpa
