Every time Deanna Dikeman said goodbye to her parents in Sioux City, Iowa, she took out her camera. They were always there, in the doorway of their house, waving as the car drove away. It was such a small, so repeated gesture that it almost went unnoticed. Almost.
From 1991 and for 27 years, Deanna photographed that ritual without fail. The series — which she titled ‘Leaving and Waving’ — came to hold more than just farewells: it captured the passage of time in her parents’ bodies, a dog that grew old and disappeared, her own son who went from being a child in the back seat to taking the wheel on his own. An entire life, framed in the same doorway.
When her mother died in October 2017, Deanna photographed that doorway again. There was no one there. No hand in the air, no smile from the garage. Just the empty house. And it was that image — the one of absence — that reminded her of something we all know but forget: at some point, without warning, the last goodbye arrives. 💛
Look at the photos: