"We Were Here"

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I lost my son  - Gianni Manganelli - at the age of twenty-three. I witnessed the perfection of his first breath, first crawl, first steps, the day he discovered his own shadow and asked: "Why is light, Daddy?" His seven year-old soul that wrote: "Words and letters are idea nets that catch poems." This grief is immeasurable, shattering. Belief systems challenged, the empirical explored - the spiritual and the scientific. The very foundation of life itself. The most profound questions mankind has asked, from the time of Paleolithic cave drawings to the now merging of science and spirituality. Who are we? Why are we? The death of our child is the most life-altering and transforming of events - yet, almost completely absent is Fatherly grief in film, or photographic exploration. Where's the biblical Joseph? What happened to him? Mary's grief at the foot of the cross is largely explored, engrained in the Judeo-Christian consciousness. What do we know about Joseph's grief? His loss? Fathers fix things. How do we fix the death of our child? How do we fix ourselves? 

"I find it true, whate-er befall

I felt it when I sorrow most:

'Tis better to have loved and lost

Than to never to have loved at all."

-- Alfred Lord Tennyson