edges of memory

In November 2017 my mom died. She was 87 years old, so it wasn’t entirely unexpected, but the massive stroke from which she died a week later seemed sudden. My dad was left alone and in August of the following year he moved into an apartment in the retirement community where they lived. After he moved, I brought home a few of my mom’s belongings - a plastic bin of clothes, a tote bag of folders, and a few dresses on hangers. All of these items were stored away untouched in my closet until the pandemic and quarantine provided me an opportunity to spend time with these objects.

So now, with my mom gone from this earth how do I look back on her life and see all of the complicated facets of her? As a photographer I have chosen to create images of some of her belongings including self-portraits wearing her mother-of-the-bride dress she wore to my wedding, one of her liturgical dance costumes, and an outfit she kept from the 1970’s. Some of her belongings were photographed in the places where she wore them. The images are accompanied by lines from a poem she wrote which I found in one of the folders I brought home from my dad’s move. ~ in memory of Jean Stevens Stockton