So much of my journey is built around my childhood. I never knew my mother very well and my grandmother raised me until I moved in with my dad before middle school. Having a mother who was unwilling to care for me is not something I‘m ashamed of but it is something that has added some challenges to my life. It is a feat that has turned me into the woman I am today, with much credit going to my grandmother and father.

My mother, the once beautiful, Amazonian warrior, was always trying to make the Earth and humanity better, as I’ve been told. She could make the world and people stop. This woman, I had never met. I only knew her as the abandoner, cheater, alcoholic, fleeter, who could barely show up to collect me for her weekly motherly duties.

When my mother had died, I was not able to go in to the house to see her and I could no longer stand to watch the scene. So I grabbed my camera and viewed it through my lens.

Your mother is an addict and you get the call that you have been expecting, unexpectedly. Pulling up to her house there’s no ambulance, only cops; the medics left without her. Mom is still in the house and the cops won’t let you in to see her one last time. Makes you realize “heart failure” may not be the exact cause of death. The Last time I Saw My Mother She Was Wearing Crimson.