I was looking through the window of a woman I had never met before. I was washing her dishes, feeling as if I was washing the same amount of cups that she drank from over the years because so many people came to her home when she left to another, better world. She must have been the most beautiful, sincere, and the strongest woman. I know this because you were too, Mom.
Twenty years ago people were washing dishes in our own home. And you know, there’s a book on my shelf turned upside down so that I don’t stare at its title that reminds me each day: I am a motherless daughter.
After you left this world, I left too. Only to seek my own life. I didn’t know where exactly, yet I exactly knew where. It just needed time, but often it translated into a lost soul that really was discovered on that road many years ago when I took my first photograph of a Burmese Mother and became a photojournalist.
Today, I look through my work and I see a pattern: I documented so many mothers! I call them Mothers of the World. I give credit to my subconscious that was always seeking you in each woman I met. And this is how I came about this project.
Dear women:
This website is rather a collection of voices of women who remember their moms. Here, we speak of the moments we didn’t get to have. The moments we’ve had. We aim to answer how we’ve been affected by the loss, and if our roles as daughters have changed. It is about our healing processes and the messages we have for other women.
BIG thank you to incredible women I met who recognized the importance of sharing their personal stories with me, because by doing so, we inspire other women around the world. So, if this projects speaks to you personally, do reach out!
VOICES OF WOMEN
LEYDA BECKER: FROM THE VENEZUELAN ANDES TO KENTUCKY
We’d go to these trips around the country with her friend. We even hiked the Andes and one day, we went swimming without our bathing suites! Oh, she was so free. Nothing could stop her from living her life. But it was in that pizza place that I actually saw her: We
KAYLA: PLANTING SEEDS
I was staying with my Grandma when my 4-year-old brother came up to me and said: "Something is wrong, where is Mom?" Ten minutes later we received a phone call that Mom is gone. She was with my 3-month-old sister when they found her car flipped over on the side of the
SENADA: “THEY TOLD ME I CAN’T ATTEND HER FUNERAL”
Nothing had scraped my ears and soul like hearing Senada’s words as she was pulled out from a van at the J.C. Kirby & Son Funeral Home in Bowling Green, Ky. Almost seemingly she’d faint, but instead, she screamed as we stood by the tombstones: ”No one will stop me from attending
FIKRETA: THE LAST TIME I SAW HER
It was 8 o’clock on a Tuesday morning, November 18th, 2008. I was home alone, 8 and a half months pregnant with my daughter when the doctor called from UK hospital in Lexington, KY. That’s where my Mom was at the time. I thought they were calling to translate something or to