Embodied Presents

I have recently had the sad news that a beloved family member has been diagnosed with a terminal illness.  She is a loved Mother, Grandmother and Great-Grandmother, which frames the situation in an inevitable rather than tragic framework.  Over the weekend I traveled from Perth to Brisbane (in Australia) to visit with her, which I am so glad could occur.  As it has been sudden news, we were just not in a position to fly all of our little family over to see her, so we thought it would be nice to take a video on my smartphone of all of our kids (4 of them) sending their well wishes.
Most of the kids got it.  Our youngest is only 3, so she is still more interested in seeing herself on the video playback than performing in front of it...perhaps a developmental connection to understanding what the device is doing (but that is for another post maybe)....but I was able to leave with a short video hello to be able to show my Grandma, from her great-grand kids.  I also had some paper flowers that my girls had made for her.

What I guess is no surprise is that it was the paper flowers that brought an ongoing sense of joy and excitement for my Grandma.  What my Grandma has been talking about and sharing with everyone she can is that her great-grand daughters from Perth made her those wonderful flowers.  She loved the videos and seeing the kids, but there was an embodied presence in those paper flowers that a short video just could not compete with.  Despite all the other flowers that adorn her room, those simple paper flowers say something else.  My daughters images weren't in those flowers, but something of who they are was.

Whilst those paper flowers hit on something special, I can't shake that it was the combination of my bodily presence, all the kids video presence and my daughters paper presence (which can stay on even now that I've gone) what has provided a mixed medium experience that has been special for all of us....and it continues as I also brought home some video of my Grandma talking to the kids.....

This whole experience continues to have me think about what it is to see the medium as an extension of our hearts.....it makes me continue to question the relationship between how it is that medium shape or alter us and how we shape and alter medium to extend our hearts....