Years with my father

Three years ago, my father fell while getting out of bed during the night. He struck his head on the nightstand and I discovered him two hours later in a circle of blood. This event marked the hard start of his decline, transforming life as we knew it. My father who loved people and gardens and flowers became more quiet, more still. His abilities became fewer, everything less. As his primary caregiver, my duties increased to include transferring, toileting, and bathing him. Our time together was both loving and filled with challenges. It was also a time for reflection--reading together, asking my father to instruct me how to air layer and graft plants, talking about dreams, remembering people whose gardens he'd planted, recording our voices and stories. Through these photographs, I am processing the daily changes, facing my father’s mortality and my own, and embracing the sadness and beauty of it all.