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As a cancer survivor I consider life a precious gift. So when my mother became fed up with her life and decided she wanted to die, signed the papers, and died a medically assisted death, it all felt wrong; it felt like suicide. In addition, I was her only child, and we had a complicated relationship based largely on her needs and my guilt. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. In order to address this emotional confusion and allow myself the freedom to grieve, I embarked on a process of inner examination and art making. This work culminated in a photo book - Process: death and discovery (2021). Recently I realized that even though I was no longer grieving, there were still emotional issues lurking that needed to be uncovered and allowed to emerge. Once again I turned to art and worked on what became Exfoliation (2023). The diptychs here are taken from both of the above projects. They are explorations that go beyond the personal and literal into the metaphorical, and reference the existential realms of living, aging, and dying. Now it is only sadness that I feel when I look back and remember my mother and our relationship. I wish we had talked. I wish we had been friends.