“mother” is my latest and most personal work to date.

My mother and aunt were both given up for adoption at birth. This begins my fascination with their lives. When they were only eight, their father died, leaving their mother all alone to raise the two. She did a damn fine job. But being children of adoption, there was always a yearning of understanding. The idea of being born and given away may seem inconsequential or other-worldly.

Recently, my aunt took a DNA testing kit and found relatives. The twins found their half sisters, half brother, and mother. They met, but that is all. Their biological mother is far beyond Alzheimers’. She is here but she is gone.

I found immense beauty in this situation. As I stated in my writing, “They had their mother, and needed no explanation…” Although it would have been interesting to talk to a coherent woman, I thought the situation was somehow cathartic. If she had not been so far gone, what could she have said?

My project, as a documentary, is trying to understand what this meeting was like. What did it mean for my mother and aunt to meet the woman who birthed them and gave them away. To finally meet her after a lifetime of wonder only to have a conversation with babble. The work began as a written anecdote, not even intended for class, but stumbled into becoming a ten-minute video, rife with music and heartwarming pictures of my mother, aunt, and their true mother.