Today marks ten years since I lost my mom, Beverly. It’s strange how a decade can feel both like a lifetime and like no time at all. I still remember the weight of her hand in mine during those final days — how something so simple became the most important thing in the world.
This photograph, Holding On, Letting Go, captures that moment. It was part of an exhibit called From Life to Death, shown at the Anvil Centre here in New Westminster from April 3 to June 1, 2018. The image itself is a double exposure — my hand and my mom’s hand intertwined, overlaid with a soft plaid pattern that, to me, always felt like the fabric of a blanket, or maybe just the texture of memory itself.
The words layered over the photograph aren’t mine. They’re from a letter written by two young girls, Mercedes and Elysha, who knew my mom through her work in a care home. She supported them, encouraged them, played bingo and did school projects and drew pictures with them. Reading their letter again today, I’m struck by how clearly they saw her:
“Beverly is fun and kind... Beverly you are very strong. And show us bravery. Beverly is the most amazing elder we ever met.”
That was who she was — even in her final chapter, still showing up for people, still leaving an imprint. Children don’t perform gratitude. What they wrote, they meant.
The title has always held two truths for me at once. Holding On — to her hand, to the moments, to who she was. And Letting Go — the thing I had to do, the thing we all eventually have to do, whether we’re ready or not. I don’t think those two things ever fully resolve into one or the other. Ten years on, I still feel both at the same time.
I’m sharing this today not for sympathy, but because I think there’s something worth saying about grief and art together — how making something out of loss doesn’t erase the loss, but it does give it a place to live outside of just your own chest. This piece has outlived the exhibit it was made for. It’s outlived the gallery walls. It’s still doing what it was always meant to do: holding her, and letting her go, at the same time.
Miss you, Mom. Thank you for ten years of carrying this with me.
