In March, 2018, my grandmother Ruth was diagnosed with AML-MRC, Acute Myeloid Leukemia, with myelodysplastic related changes. It originated as a disease called Myelodysplastic Syndrome, or MDS. She was 70 years old at the time. I spent several months photographing her journey with cancer. I visited her in the hospital and captured whatever I felt was right. I wanted to create a sense of intimacy and empathy and to show the honest truth of what this treatment was like for her. 

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This crisis made her unable to continue to care for my Grandfather, Keith. He was a kind, hard-working man and talented writer who had a life-changing, catastrophic stroke when I was 7 years old and he was 60. He lost all control of his left arm, and his cognitive abilities were severely diminished. He was dependent on my Grandmother's care. 

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My grandparents are very important to me. I grew up only a few minutes drive from their home, and spent hours doing art lessons with my grandma. She was an artist all her life; she loves to paint, sculpt, and sketch, and she went to great lengths to ensure I got the best art education possible by her side. I followed in her footsteps, going to ASU and majoring in photography, and I plan to graduate, as she could not. It is my dream to show her just how much all her hard work paid off, and to show her I can succeed with the lessons she taught me. It's hard to stand by and document other people suffering, especially when you love them, but I feel that photographing them and working with them on these projects together gave us all a sense of purpose during difficult times.

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In 2022, my grandfather passed away after 15 long years of suffering. He died peacefully. I photographed him and my grandmother holding hands only a few hours before.