{"id":2345,"date":"2010-04-29T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2010-04-29T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.foto8.com\/live\/?p=2345"},"modified":"2010-04-29T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2010-04-29T00:00:00","slug":"intensive-care","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.foto8.com\/live\/intensive-care\/","title":{"rendered":"Intensive Care"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"stultiens_280\"Mid-January 2009. As we entered the New Year, everything changed.<\/p>\n
My boyfriend and I had booked a holiday months in advance and decided to use the holiday as an excuse to get married. The wedding took place on a cold but cheerful day. Our parents were there, siblings with their loved ones, and friends to act as witnesses. My boyfriend\u2019s family took the wedding photographs. Everyone had a good time.<\/p>\n
Four days later we were on our way to Thailand. The journey went without a hitch. We celebrated New Year\u2019s Eve with a bunch of locals and the next day we continued on our journey. The following morning we were woken up by our travelling companion. He had received a text from The Netherlands. I was to get in touch urgently on \u2018a familiy matter\u2019. When I got through my mother told me that my sister and her boyfriend had been in an accident on New Year\u2019s Eve. They were test driving a car they were thinking of buying, and it had turned over into a ditch. The doctors had advised that I should return home immediately. We took our bikes back to the rental company two days before they were due.<\/p>\n
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Searching online for \u2018December 31\u2019, \u2018car\u2019, \u2018ditch\u2019, and \u2018Utrecht\u2019 produced images of the wrecked car Simone and Frodo had been driving. The accident hadn\u2019t happened, as I had initially assumed, at quarter past eleven in the evening but in the morning. Looking back I can\u2019t remember when I received that information, or when it began to sink in. <\/p>\n

At the hospital, some people just wanted to sit with Simone. Not me. I began to take photographs \u2013 becuase I couldn\u2019t remember ever having been able to observe what an intensive care unit looks like, and because it felt safer to have a buffer between me and the situation. And it was something to do.<\/p>\n

A lot could be captured on film. There was even more that couldn’t.<\/p>\n
As I write, I have as yet to see the photographs I took; of the hospital; the funerals; the apartment. I know they won\u2019t say a lot about Simone and Frodo. The question is if they will help as a way of saying goodbye.<\/p>\n

Andrea Stultiens
www.andreastultiens.nl<\/a><\/p>\n

Poetry written and narrated by Vrouwkje Tuinman (listen to two other poems below the slideshow).<\/p>\n