I’ll be honest. Death has been a great big part of my life. I’d say it’s hit close to home, but that would be a lie.

It hit home.

Twice.

So although I’m not one of those people who has some obscene fascination with death, it’s certainly something I’ve been intimately exposed to.

In fact, we’ve all had our brushes with death, whether by our own experiences (I fell through a roof once when I was about 15 – I remember not being able to breathe and thinking “I can’t breathe anymore. This is it. I’m gonna die.”) or because we knew people who died.

And I do want to point something out. I don’t like to filter the language in describing death. I don’t say “passed away” or “went to a better place”.

It’s death! It’s not supposed to be pleasant or easy to say. It’s tragic and it’s painful.

And so, with all of that comes the narrative of this series. The idea came to me in November of 2009 and I immediately knew I wanted to illustrate the quiet and lonely suffering we all endure when confronted with the death of a loved one.

Many thanks to Kari Hawker (model), Ashlen Saunders Duke (hair stylist), Shanda Palmer from FaseItMakeup (makeup artist) and AultoRest Memorial for allowing us to shoot there!!