Memory Seed Bombs - Progression
I thought I had more time…
But I always knew better.
With Alzheimer's, good days are finite. I knew that moving to Europe while my mother was still alive was functionally saying goodbye to her early. Between the distance and the expense of plane tickets and my own emotional avoidance; this move was always going to run out the clock on our time together. And it did. I do not regret that, but I have regrets about that – if that splitting of emotional hairs and word-lawyering makes sense. Anyway, this piece is about one of those regrets.
I started painting the Memory Seed Bombs when my mother was first diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. However, I never wanted her to be my “muse” for this series. That would have felt trivializing; like I was striping her of emotional agency in our shared horror story of familial loss. Years earlier we’d lost my father, my grandfather and grandmother (her parents), and my great uncle and great aunt (her uncle and aunt) to various, assorted memory disorders. We both carry those obituaries in our hearts and in our genes. Assigning her the passive role of inspirational angel would have downplayed her active grief.
She deserved better.
She deserved to have a Memory Seed Bomb painted for her, not just about her.
She deserved to receive the full experience and treatment that everyone else has received in this series – a seed bomb painted in honor of a lost relative, featuring an object/memory she associated with them, that is then planted and sprouted.
However, I was not interested in tripping into an emotional landmine with this. Offering to paint her a Memory Seed Bomb for my father was too painful; so I asked if she’d like me to immortalize a simple memory of her parents instead. She chose the whiskey sours they drank every evening after dinner. So I found an era-appropriate whiskey sour mix package and turned it into a seed bomb for her. Then life intervened.
There was the pandemic lockdown, we had to move her into memory care, I quit my job due to burn out, I moved to the Netherlands. And suddenly the visits became further and further apart. Until last year, when I went and it was mainly silence.
The moment to plant the seed bomb together has passed.
So for fifty days I watered her Memory Seed Bomb for her, sprouting the forget-me-nots inside. Going through the motions of remembrance, celebration, and grief that she no longer can. This memory may not originally be mine, but in a way, it is now.
