Right now, you and I are in your father’s apartment. We’re surrounded by him, even though he’s gone. We can see him everywhere, in the golden light that comes in through the bedroom windows at sunrise, in the crimsons and midnight blues of the Persian rug on the floor, in the fragrant coffee beans stockpiled in his kitchen— coffee he’ll never get to drink. But we’ll drink it for him, you and I.
If I’m gone when you’re reading this, look up your father’s name: Gabriel Samson. Look up his art. Look up the exhibit he showed at the Joseph Landis gallery in Chelsea in 2011. I hope you can see, from his photographs, how deeply he felt for the world—and how deeply he and I felt for each other. He was an artist, your father, a brilliant, sensitive, beautiful artist who tried to make the world better with every photograph he took. He wanted to share stories across borders, across boundaries, across races and religions. And he did. But he gave his life for it.
He wasn’t perfect.
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