Remembrance

As I’ve been painting this piece, I’ve found myself reflecting on my Dad’s journey with dementia and my own journey walking beside him.

Watching someone you love slowly lose access to names, places, memories, and identities has a way of asking unexpected questions.

Who are we when the stories disappear?

Who are we beneath the roles, accomplishments, fears, and identities we spend a lifetime protecting?

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been sitting with those questions in meditation and at the easel.

What has emerged isn’t an answer so much as a knowing.

A deeper layer beneath all of it.

Something untouched.

Something that remains.

As I’ve watched parts of my father’s world fall away, I’ve also noticed places within myself that I didn’t realize were closed.

Places defended.

Places protected.

Places still trying to become somebody.

This painting became a reflection of that opening.

Not of losing ourselves.

But of discovering what remains when everything we thought was ourselves begins to soften.

Beneath memory.

Beneath identity.

Beneath the mind.

There is something that still knows.

And perhaps it always has.