Old Photo #44 – Bill Watching a Dragonfly Hatch

I believe this photo was taken the last time Ruth's father, Bill Penner, spent time at the cottage with us. Over the years since Ruth had purchased it, he & Mildred had spent much time there, either alone or with the extended family.

Bill loved the cottage. Despite the fact that, for the last dozen years of his life, he was increasingly imprisoned in his body by the advance of Parkinson's Disease, he did whatever he could to contribute to its maintenance and upkeep.

By the summer this photo was taken (likely 2004), he was pretty much unable to make it down the two short sets of stairs to the dock on his own. I happened to be working on the dock and noticed, for the first time in my life, a water beetle attach itself to the stairs and begin the metamorphosis into a dragonfly. I headed back up to the cottage and asked Bill if he'd ever seen this event. When he answered in the negative, I helped him get down to the dock and observed for well over an hour as sat quietly contemplating this little miracle of life.

It was impossible not to tear up at the irony of this situation: a being freeing itself from a shell in order to fly while another, watching, was being locked up in his body before he might be loosed from his mortal bonds.