I took the first photo of my daughter, Rebecca, moments after she was born on August 3, 2005.
Barely more than 15 years later, on January 3, 2021, I took the last photo of my daughter moments after she died of cancer.
I’m a photojournalist. It was natural that I documented just about every moment of Becs’ beautiful life, as my wife, Marisa, and I documented.
Like the time when she was 2 and her face looked lit up from the inside. The time she danced on stage, she was only 12, but gravitationally challenged grace and poetry. The time she played Cookie in a field of wildflowers with our dog, her smile was as big as the sky.
Harder, much more difficult, documented her illness and death to a rare and extremely aggressive form of bone cancer.
Like the time she sat in the dark and received IV fluids after a chemotherapy session, her long and sweet dark hair is a memory.
The time she hugged her teddy bear, hugged her tightly as she slept in her hospital room amid a horrible series of procedures, we hoped it could save her.
And the time her mother cried over her body moments after Becs died, the freckles on her face were a cruel symbol of her youth and beauty.
Last fall, Reuters published a Wider Image photo essay on our family’s battle with Becs’ disease, made even more impossible by the coronavirus pandemic that reached Malta, the island where we live. The essay ended with a moment of hope after she was discharged from hospital after months of grueling treatment:
“For Becs’ first outing a few days after she came out of the hospital, I took her late at night to the northwest corner of the island, a relatively dark area, so she could see the comet Neowise. the comet could hardly be seen with the naked eye, Becs managed it using my camera and long lens.
And then we saw a shooting star. We made a wish – no prizes to guess what it was. ‘
Hope was then another thing, something I still believe in, and always chose to believe in the best case.
After she was discharged from the hospital in mid-July, I believed the worst was behind her. How wrong, how deceived I was – maybe always in denial about things. I did not realize at the time that the reason that nothing would happen with a possible treatment option in England, because the consultants there did not believe that she had a great chance, that the cancer would erupt again, as it had already metastasized. by the time she was diagnosed at the end of 2019.
No one ever spelled it out to me – the day we found out she was in a lot of pain, a full month before she even had the first x-ray that showed she had a tumor in her shoulder that day in 2019, it was too late for her.
See what I mean? Delusion and denial – that has been me to this day.
Only two months after she was discharged, we had to take Becs to the hospital. It was Sunday, September 27th. I did not know, but Becs saw our dog Cookie and cats Zippy and Zorro for the last time, she saw her bedroom for the last time, she left the house for the last time – she would never come back.
On October 31st, Becs posted on Facebook: “1 year .. it’s been 1 whole year since I was diagnosed with a rare type of bone cancer called Ewings Sarcoma. At that point I did not think I was still battling this, but here it is me with more chemotherapy and more radiotherapy before … Honestly, I thought I would have my life back now.I thought I could follow online school like any other normal student who does not go to school.Instead was I too bad to even follow it.I thought I was done with chemo and radiotherapy.But here I relive what I went through in the past year.There are days I am angry and scared but there are also days where I am grateful feel for all the love and support everyone showed me when I needed it most I would never have been able to fight this battle without my friends, family and even some people I do not ‘know personally’ So, I just wanted to say .. THANK YOU “
Becs passed away very peacefully, without any signs of distress, on Sunday morning, January 3, 2021 at 9:20 p.m. Mars, as I call my wife, and I were both with her.
According to doctors, Becs had been severely anesthetized over the past week, so it was pain-free and unconscious. Her condition appears to have dipped late at night on Christmas Eve. It was the worst night ever – we spent the whole night awake. She was in such a bad state on Christmas Day, I did not expect her to pick up the end of the day on this, her favorite day of the year. Would not there have been a terrible kind of poetry to it?
She woke up for a few hours that evening and was disappointed that she had missed Christmas, but believed that she should only celebrate it as soon as she got better and went home. Mars promised her that she would eventually come home, but Becs replied, “Mom, don’t set my hopes too high.”
The next two evenings she woke up briefly again, much to the surprise of her doctors, and we were able to chat and share some precious moments.
After that, she slipped into a deep coma and never regained her consciousness, but we continued to talk to her. I read to her a lot, completed the Harry Potter book I was going to read to her and started the next in the series, holding her hand. They say it’s the last thing we hear, so it’s important to keep listening to our voices.
In the end, her breathing only became shallower and shallower, until it became very light, with the gaps between them becoming longer. Then there was no more.
I kept talking to her, convinced that she could hear me now and understand me better than before, and told her not to be afraid. I told her that I could hold her hand for as long as I could, but now she would find that others could take her hand, and when she felt she was ready, she should go along. I kept looking up at the ceiling – do people who died and were then resuscitated in the hospital say that they watched everything from close to the ceiling? So Becs watched from there? Was she confused, or did she know exactly what was happening and was it calm and peaceful?
All the nurses submitted to the room and stood in quiet respect around her bed. I’m not sure if they understand what I’m doing, why I whispered to her as I looked away from her body, but I could not care less.
Word of Becs’ passing spread quickly. There was a lot of media coverage. The Archbishop of Malta, Charles Scicluna, was informed during a high mass in the country’s main cathedral and announced her departure during the live TV broadcast. He was very emotional, and people told me he shed tears. He later contacted us and asked if he could lead the funeral.
We only allowed 180 people into the church due to the restrictions of Covid-19. It usually holds 600 comfortably; even if it were normal times, it would overflow. We decided to do a live stream of the service so people can participate that way. It was not easy to pick the 180 and contact them individually, but the distraction was a good thing. It’s those quiet, lonely moments, like when I’m in the shower, that’s hitting me really hard.
After the funeral, Becs was taken to England for cremation. Mars and I both agreed that we could not stand the thought or face of her in a wooden coffin lowered into the ground. Then I finally brought her home, as Mars promised her we would do, even though it was not as Becs understood at the time.
Every day, every moment I think of her (and these are many moments), I’m desperately looking for the signs that people have said we will encounter, just as I’m desperate to dream of her, and yet I do not. . Maybe I’m trying too hard and I just need to make things happen, and I’ll recognize it if it does.
In the months before her death, Becs played a game on her iPhone – ‘Sky Children of the Light’. She wanted me to join her, and I upgraded my old iPhone to a newer model. I loved the game and loved playing it with her. As our avatars traveled together and floated through different clouds and landscapes on different quests – which I eventually discovered symbolize the different phases of life, from early childhood to death and beyond – she was my guide, my mentor, my teacher. She (rather her avatar) holds my hand and leads me everywhere, and that’s how I wanted it.
Throughout her life I have tried to guide and teach her, and now she does the same to me. I do not know if she saw this game as a kind of allegory of her own life – even if it was only on a subconscious level.
The only part of the game she did not show me was the point where your character must die to advance; she said I’m not ready for that. Did she know that she would soon die herself? She certainly never talked about it or asked about it. We decided earlier we would not tell her unless she specifically asked. How should you make the news known to your child?
For me, the game has evolved into a metaphor of what would happen once I’m finally over myself – she will be there waiting for me, taking my hand and holding it, acting as my guide and guardian, taking me where I need to go.
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