My biggest fear, which I always knew would be my inevitable truth, came to me with big, menacing and quietly relentless hands. They took hold of my neck and squeezed for the first three quarters of the year, 2019. 9 ICU visits. By the 6th, I forgot that the I stood for intensive. During the 2nd my father forgot who I was and couldn’t tell the nurse my name. I was introduced to a new silence. And wound. It was soon nursed by hearing my dad call me "doll baby" days later, letting me know he had come to his senses and not only knew me, but loved me still. I thought the death of my father would very seriously be the death of me. And not literally, of course, but I was convinced that maybe spiritually or emotionally or whatever, I would be tapped. Spilled with no chance of picking up. Broken, bruised. For good. But to my surprise the chokehold did not squeeze me dry and only now can I look back at all of it and think, I must know a thing or two about survival. So here’s to that, and here’s a few selected images of my trips back home to visit my family during the time of my father's health decline and then eventual death. Images that, although sometimes pain me, are very dear to me. 

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