A Photographer Refocuses Life's Lens

By Joel Sartore, Lincoln, Nebraska

As appeared in

I’m a nature photographer by profession. I’ve traveled the world and endured every kind of physical hardship to get that perfect shot. I love my work and I’m a perfectionist about it. I am prepared. I once lay still for hours in the sand in Bolivia, ignoring the bees and wasps that crawled up my shirt, just so I could capture a rare butterfly flitting past.

The hardships don’t matter when I look through the lens. Somehow the world makes more sense to me framed by a camera. For one blissful moment everything is composed and in focus. Everything is under control.

Nothing was under control, though, one terrible autumn a few years ago when I got back from an assignment photographing Alaska’s majestic North Slope for National Geographic.

I’d been home in Nebraska a couple months editing photos when, the day before Thanksgiving, my wife, Kathy, discovered the lump in her right breast.

We’d just celebrated our twentieth wedding anniversary. Our two older kids, Cole and Ellen, were still in elementary school. Spencer, our youngest, was barely out of diapers. Within weeks Kathy was bedridden, so weakened by chemo she couldn’t even speak some days. All of a sudden I had a new assignment. I had to take care of Kathy, keep the household going and hide my fears from the kids. It was the exact opposite of being in the field. I had no team of assistants helping me. I was by myself. And I was totally unprepared.

One evening about a month after her cancer diagnosis Kathy was resting in the bedroom and I was in the kitchen cooking dinner. Well, not exactly cooking. I was trying to decipher the microwave directions on a box of Tater Tots.

“Dad, how come Mom’s Tater Tots taste better than yours?” asked nine-year-old Ellen.

“When are you going to help me with my math homework, Dad?” asked Cole, who was 12.

“Tater Tots!” cried two-year-old Spencer from his high chair.

“They’re coming, buddy,” I said.

“I don’t like it when they’re soggy,” said Ellen. “Don’t make them soggy.”

“Tater Tots!”

The microwave beeped and I dished out the meal. “They’re soggy,” proclaimed Ellen.

“I’m sorry, sweetheart. I’m doing my best,” I said.

Cole scribbled at his homework as he ate. I looked at the pile of lunch dishes still unwashed in the sink. Spencer chewed a Tater Tot and frowned.

“I want Mommy,” he said quietly. Ellen nodded in agreement.

Cole looked up. I did my best to keep my voice from cracking.

“I miss Mom too,” I said. “Let’s finish up here and get you to bed, Spencer. Then we can work on that math, Cole.”

Then I remembered. It was bath night. I wouldn’t be joining Kathy in bed for quite a while. When I finally slipped in beside her I couldn’t tell whether she was awake. It was the dead of winter. She was wrapped in blankets, a wool hat pulled tightly over her bald head. She seemed to be murmuring something, maybe talking in her sleep.

I stared at her curled form and tried to remember happier times. We’d met in college at a blues bar. She was so beautiful, so patient and wise.

She still was those things. So different from me! Joel, the guy who never sat still, who hated every moment he wasn’t working. They call people like me Type A personalities. We’re hard to live with sometimes. I felt an intense pang of guilt. For much of our marriage Kathy hadn’t had to live with me. About half of every year I was away on assignment, mostly for National Geographic. Kathy ran the house while I was gone and when I got home, I holed up in my office to edit photos.