Ten years ago, this morning, I got a call I didn't want to receive. It was my mate Alain's dad telling me that Alain's wife Lindsay had passed away. She had been ill for some months. She was 23. Janice and I were heartbroken and drove immediately to be with Alain.
It is hard to believe that it is ten years ago. I think about Lindsay a lot and when I do she is always the girl on the edge of the photograph. I am not sure whether my favourite photo of Lindsay, taken in Cape Town in 2004 inspired me to think about her wider influence and therefore write this poem or not. Gordon Ashbridge's photo is a gem!
Alain once introduced the poem in the following way... it reads beautifully to me. Remembering Lindsay, Alain and the Emerson and Anderson families today!
"Stocki continues to be inspired by Lins life and in turn, with his gift with words, inspire us all. He told me that as he sifted through his photos Lins was always on the edges of photos. He told me that he believed this was an analogy of her life. Even though she could have carried of the centre screen so easily, she chose the edges, the margins - seeing the things many of us, who were too busy looking our photograph taken, missed; silently doing the ordinary stuff extraordinarily well. She was kind - simple as that." - Alain Emerson
Girl on the edge of the photograph
Who always seemed so distracted
The gift of your mischievousness
Was what left you so unaffected.
Girl on the edge of the photograph
Who could have been centre screen
The beauty about her beauty
Was she knew what beauty means.
Girl on the edge of the photograph
A heart with peripheral vision
The strength of your contrariness
Touched the corners of this world’s derision.
Girl on the edge of the photograph
Who you could so easily miss
But not by those who watched you bow
To give their soul a kiss.
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