I photographed my father in his last months to mark the moments we had left, to harvest time. We made the most of my visits home to Maine: we packed lunch and drove up to Freeport, taking the coastal route. On less energetic days, we watched a movie, played a game of Scrabble. I busied myself with the pressing work of photographing as much as he would permit—which was surprisingly more than I’d expected. My dad understood intrinsically that this was something I needed to do. He became my humble but assertive collaborator. With my camera I could make the oppressive sadness feel meaningful, somehow. I could try to control our sliver of reality, which was narrowing with every passing day.

In the aftermath of my father’s passing from cancer, I leaf through the archive, uncovering a younger version of him I never knew. By bringing these old photographs into conversation with my own documentation, I expand the portrait I am compiling—of him and my grief. In this process I learn about him, and myself, anew. I keep our relationship alive.

Through these photographic meditations, I hold my dad’s memory close, striving to accept what is gone, and that which I cannot know, with peace.