Memory and Continuity
The poignancy of grief and rescue
Collage of Artifacts with Photograph by Jon Phetteplace 1985, Aviva Rahmani.
Decades ago, one of my oldest and dearest friends, Jon Phetteplace, committed suicide after his battle with AIDS began to flag. My ex-husband, Payson Stevens, inherited his beautiful photographic portfolio and has been trying to place it. I have several of Jon’s beautiful works, including a few of his platinum print studies of Bristlecone pines. Jon once asked me to marry him. The sexual barriers were irrelevant to him but I didn’t see a realistic future.