A Letter To Papa

When my Aunt Valerie died, there was no question who would take the boxes upon boxes of images she had stored away. Val, a hoarder in her own right, had more Walmart and Kodak prints than befitting such a short life. So when I left home that Fall, someone loaded all of those boxes into my car, and I left town weighed down by more than grief. 

Five years later, I wonder if they even asked if I wanted them or if they were just put aside for me. Somewhere along the way, my love for photography came synonymous with being my Family’s Historian. Like many of my fellow photographers, I have unofficially been entrusted with these images, artifacts, and memories. 

Now, dealing with the death of my own father, I again am weighed down by the physical weight of photographs, grief, and generations of keeping, saving, and hoarding. 

A Letter To Papa is an ongoing examination of my own family archive and how grief manifests.