a conversation with my sister
2019 - 2023
When my sister died unexpectedly, both the past and the future were permanently and ruthlessly altered. There was grief for what had past and grief for what should have been the future. With her gone, I had lost a witness to my childhood. Now in my 60’s, there aren’t many who knew me then, who knew my family, grandparents, the house I grew up in, the neighborhood I rode my bike through. Losing my sister was, and continues to be, a uniquely traumatic shock.
This project offered me a road map to remember the familiar surroundings of family and childhood and a life where my sister was ever present. With her gone, there is a kind of haunting, an incrimination, of how things could have or should have been different. Guilt and confusion are the norm. For those who have lost a sibling, the world can feel out of order. With the loss of my sister, I would say the world is, indeed, out of order.
