Why You Need an Engineer When Building Your Castle in the Sky
“Crossing Over” Carolina Bay November 2024
One of the reasons I have been posting these “Musings” on Sundays, is it was typically the day I would call my parents to catch up with them. It wasn’t every Sunday, but it was often enough that it became a “thing” between my parents and me. Below is an edited version of the eulogy I gave my father during his funeral (on my birthday) in 2024. At the end of this post, I will explain the significance of the photos I chose.
I am posting this on the first Sunday of January 2026 as we start into another new year. Part of this is because 2024 and 2025 were both years of big transitions and events. In early 2024, my mother passed at the age of 91. In late November, my father then passed at 94. Both passings were sad, emotional, though, also beautiful events. I won’t get into the details, though losing both parents so close together has had its effects. And in September of that year we were hit by Hurricane Helene. 2025 was a turning point my family. My wife graduated with he masters degree and started her new profession as a dietitian. My daughter and her boyfriend started their transition into their next stage of their lives. And for me, my creative career moved up a notch or two. And I was saddened to not have those Sunday calls to fill in my parents on these big events.
Most of these words came to me as I was lying in a hotel bed early in the morning the day before my dad died. And my family was gathering to be part of his passing. I was thinking more broadly about creativity and how my dad, the conssumate engineer, was creative in his way and helped all of us eight kids with all of our endeavors in his own special way. Like most children, we really didn’t see or appreciate how helpful and carrying our parents are until much later. Luckily for my family, we saw and acknowledge it to our parents long before their passing.
“The Longing” Aiken, SC, July 2024
Why You Need an Engineer When Building Your Castle in the Sky
While sitting and praying with my sister Mary with our dad in his hospital bed, she told him, “You were a good dad.” When she asked me if I would agree, I said “You were a tough dad.” I then added, “And a good one, too.” When I was a kid, I think it was the easy way to describe him as a tough dad. But as I grew up and got to know him better, I realized he was about the best dad and a very good role model for any man. Yes, tough, but also very fair, considerate, and giving.
I think when we were kids, our dad would question us about all our choices. Whenever we would talk with him about our latest schemes – or our latest idea for our next castle in the sky – he would almost rush at us with questions like: “Have you done a survey of the site? What type of building material do you plan to use? Are you getting a contractor or doing it yourself? What’s your timeline for building and completion?” And on and on and on. While he is peppering us with these questions, we are dodging and weaving with vague answers, if we even had those. We took all this as almost a verbal assault on our great dream of this wonderful castle. We would often come back with “Man, why are you bringing me down with all these negative thoughts and ideas? They will just weigh down my castle and keep it from the sky.”
I saw this with myself as I strove to be a photographer and whenever I heard my siblings talking with him, too. But then I started noticing how often his questions were valid and that he wasn’t asking to put the idea down. He was asking so that he, the engineer, could better understand if we knew what we were talking about. And what I started to understand about him was that the more you were able to let him know you had answers to some of these questions – even if he didn’t completely like or agree with them – and other answers would come as you worked on your castle, he would start to support your idea. And better was to show him some actual progress on your castle.
“Skiff on the River Styx” Aiken, SC, December 2025
For me it was giving him a list of the journalism schools I had been accepted to and how good those schools were at getting graduates jobs. (Always a big question for him.) He grumbled, but he also saw I was pretty serious. As I moved from one newspaper photo castle to another, he questioned me about if they were the right castles for me. And even when I told him I was getting out of photography, he posed questions about how this new castle might have its own issues, and had I thought them through.
Fast-forward many years, when I was starting to get back into photography, my father and I had some very good conversation about the nature of the business and ideas on building and marketing this newer castle. And the last trip he and my mom made to Aiken, they came to see my small opening at a local gallery. Where they charmed all my art friends. And what did he do during most of that visit? He kept asking me questions about how things were going on my castle, my wife’s castle and our daughter’s castle. At this time, all three of our castles are stronger, bigger and higher in the sky because of him and the questions he kept asking.
Thank you so much, Dad.
“Mourners in the Fog” Boyd Pond December 2021
Now about the photos. The first photo “Crossing Over” was taken in the Carolina Bay just a few days after my dad passed. As I was photographing the leaf next to this rock and on the water, it made me think of my parents passing on to the next thing. And the pine straw on the rock was the organized chaos that is my family during both events.
“The Longing” was taken early one morning when I walked into my kitchen and saw this little plant on our windowsill seeming to be longing for the outdoors. This was one of the plants my coworkers sent me soon after my mother passed. So, it also made me think of her and the longing I had to see her and talk with her again.
“Skiff on the River Stix” In 2024 when my dad passed away, my company was nice enough to send me this big, beautiful lily plant. Recently, one of the lilies bloomed and then died. What caught my attention was how the stem curved back on itself and looked like a little boat. I photographed this so it looks like it’s floating down the River Stix – the mythical boundary between life and death.
“Mourners in the Fog”: On a cold and foggy morning 2021, these trees around Boyd Pond in Aiken seem to be mourning this fallen pine tree.
To wrap this long post up, I’d like to ask you: Are you asking the right questions about your own castle in the sky? Are there people around you who you trust to help you survey, map out and build your castle? Are you looking at possibly renovating an old wing? Or would it be better to tear it down and start something new? Or are there things or people in your life that are holding your castle down? Are there doubts and fears in you that are keeping your castle from reaching new heights? Don’t be worried about the questions being asked, start being concerned when you are spending more time bobbing and weaving with your answers, as opposed to having clear, though maybe not complete, thought out answers.
No matter what state your castle is in, keep working on making it better by creating more of what you do.
Patrick Krohn
January 2026