(Best friends) (2024)
Narrative artwork, Photo diptych

“I was looking through old photo albums from my mother’s side of the family, and among them were these photos. They were taken in Kansas, this one is of my great grandfather Fred Ellis Smith and his wife Viola, and this one is of my great grandfather Fred Ellis Smith and his best friend Jesse Kirk. What struck me in this photo, wasn’t just the holding hands, or Fred’s hand gently caressing the nape of Jesse’s neck, but that the photo was labeled (best friends) , by someone. I asked my mom if she knew anything about these photos. She said he was short so that’s probably why he was sitting, and that Viola was standing to show off her dress. She didn’t know anything about Jesse Kirk, besides that they were best friends and Fred named one of his sons Kirk as a middle name. She told me that Viola stopped talking to Fred at the end of his life when he was sick, and no one was sure why. She also told me that when she was in highschool biology class learning about genes and eye color she thought it was strange that both Viola and Fred had blue eyes, and while the first three children had blue eyes the last three had brown eyes. She said her mother gave her a verbal lashing when she asked about it, because her father was one of the children with brown eyes. 

Everyone who would have known anything about Jesse and Fred and Viola are long gone. But there's something about this photo, and the fact that someone was compelled to clarify that they are just (best friends), and maybe they were best friends, but maybe they weren’t, and all I know for sure is that Fred married Viola, and if he didn’t I wouldn’t be writing about this right now. 

In the photo album is a valentines day poem from Fred to Viola:

‘Forty five years ago today,
I was a bachelor young and gay.
Young and lonely was I then,
Heaven only knows what I might have been,
If strolling down the way of life,
I hadn’t met a lovely maid
My Valentine, my Future wife.

She was a darling, demure and shy,
With a smile on her lips and stars in her eyes.
Her hair was black as a ravens wing.
She was sweet and petite, a lovely thing.

My sweetheart she’s been all through the years,
Through sunshine and sorrow,
through smiles and tears,
She’s sitting beside me as I pen the last line,
My Darling, My Dearest, My sweet Valentine.’

- Fred Ellis Smith

Perhaps later I found a letter from Fred to Jesse, perhaps it went something like this:

‘Dear Jesse,

I miss you, I miss you, I miss you, I miss you, I miss you, I miss you, I miss you, I miss you,

I miss you, I miss you, I miss you, I miss you, I miss you, I miss you, I miss you, I miss you,

I miss you, I miss you, I miss you, I miss you, I miss you, I miss you, I miss you, I miss you,

I miss you, I miss you, I miss you, I miss you, I miss you, I miss you, I miss you, I miss you,

I miss you, I miss you, I miss you, I miss you, I miss you, I miss you, I miss you, I miss you,

I missed you.’

- Fred