“By opening the boxes, I realized that they had been closed for a while for a reason. It is a transport to a time I can’t really look at,” says Pat. Through his childhood and teenage years, Pat has experienced a series of events you would probably consider as “tough”. Massive drug abuse by his mother led to lies and broken promises. At some point, the situation in the family house got so bad that Pat’s older brother Drew moved out and turned his back towards his mother for a couple of years. Since Gail was single parenting and absent most of the time, Pat started to develop anxiety problems while he was left alone in the family house in Mar Vista. At the age of 17, it got worse. Gail relapsed, and the family was sent out of their apartment due to rent arrears. Pat was then taken in by the family of his best friend and lived under their staircase “like Harry Potter” for a while. Gail went on an exhausting odyssey defined by homelessness, drugs, and police arrests. After one year of constant collapsing, she finally managed to make her way into rehab. From that moment onwards, life got better as she found some peace again. She was finally reconciled with Drew after so many years of silence, and her grandchildren became the focus of a newfound optimism that would remain until her death.

One night, when Pat was 22 years old, he got a call from his mother after she was hospitalized with acute breathing problems. She had been grappling with respiratory problems for several years. At this moment Pat realized that he wouldn’t have his mom in his life for much longer. Soon after she was discharged, he began to portrait her. Starting out with more observational images, but over time he became more thoughtful and aware of the way he photographed her. Pat wanted to show her from another perspective, one that was positive, beautiful and celebrated.