Dying mother

http://jmcolberg.com/weblog/extended/archives/meditations_on_photographs_a_woman_sits_for_a_final_photograph_with_her_dying_mother/

I found this photography, taken by Eduard Mehome to be extremely challenging for me, but also quite beautiful. The two women in the photo are from Benin, the one holding onto her dying mother. But by no means is this in any way what one would expect when you think of a daughter with her mother at the death bed. You can see that the mother is certainly on her way out, but the daughter almost loosely drapes her arm around her shoulder, like you would an old friend. There isn't any pain in the latter's face, she understands what is happening, but instead of getting up and running away, she is there with her mother, in her final moments, posing her final and maybe first photograph of her life that she will never see. I find it quite beautiful.