Photographs and text by Christopher Dixon, Zachary's Uncle
I took these photographs on the 4th anniversary of Zachary’s death: February 27th, 2013. Frank had booked a tour of Dodger Stadium for "The 27th" and invited the family.
After the tour started I was struck by how quiet and calm the stadium was. I hadn’t been to many games in LA but the ones I had gone to were loud, almost chaotic. We walked around the park, barely seeing anyone else. It was eerie.
This feeling mirrored how it felt for a long time after Zach died. Quiet, empty, alone. This was visually displayed in front of me and was, honestly, hard to process until after I left. I had brought my camera to take pictures of the family. I took maybe 10 photos of people that day and 50 of the landscape and scenery of the stadium. While processing these pictures, the feeling I had at the stadium was magnified and I realized that I had something special and very personal.
The picture of the man pressure washing a corner of the stadium stands out for me. I have felt myself doing that figuratively, inside, trying to clean the emotional mess that Zachary's death had left in my life. It took a pressure washer and the process was slow and meticulous, row by row. It's a tough job. But like they say, someone has to do it.
For the record: The Dodgers final opponent the previous fall, before our off-season tour, was the Giants. In the press box there was a white board and their line-up was still written on it along with the team's name. I wrote “SUCK” after the word “Giants” in Dry Erase on that board . . .
I think Zach would have been proud.
