This week marks one year since my father’s passing, November 22.
In that time, there have been so many milestones without him: his birthday, my birthday, holidays that felt quieter, thinner somehow. Each one has been a reminder of his absence, but also of the love and ritual that remain.
I’ve been working through the loss with my Mummy Bear series; a practice that began long before he died, when his memory started to fade. Every year since, I’ve created a new bear as an act of remembrance, a way to preserve our bond through my hands. What began as grief work has evolved into something larger, a visual language for love, memory, and transformation.
Grief doesn’t move in a straight line. It loops and unravels, it knots itself into the fabric of daily life. As I approach this anniversary, I find myself both heavy and grateful, for the years we had, for the ritual of making, for the quiet ways art holds what words cannot.
Each Mummy Bear is a conversation between what was and what remains. In the knotting, the wrapping, the layering, I find him, and, in some small way, find myself again.
