‘Then all those little pale lights,’ whispers Holly, ‘crossing the sand, they’re souls?’

‘Yes. Thousands and thousands, at any given time.’ We walk over to the eastern window, where an inexact distance of Dunes rolls down through darkening twilight to the Last Sea. ‘And that’s where they’re bound.’ We watch the little lights enter the starless extremity and go out, one by one by one.

(Mitchell, 2014)

In February 2016, my paternal grandfather Bill passed away. I had visited him in hospital the week before and photographed him there. The light that is captured in my photograph once reflected off him “like the delayed rays of a star” (Barthes, 2000:81). Though I hold his image in my hands, in this book, the photograph fortells of his death, and also of our own. They tell of the unstoppable passing of time, and of the “simultaneous presence of life and death” in every photograph (Hirsch, 2012:19). This book is my reflection on Bill’s passing, and works as a personal memento mori, a reminder of both life and its ending.