At 4:00AM on Monday 7 May 1973, my Mother Died and I became a disconnect; my eighth birthday was 6 days later.
Though my father and younger brother remained, I spent decades stranded in a place which did not understand me; I only heard her name mentioned three times in the twenty-three years that followed.
In this image, however, the distance collapses. I stand reunited with her, clutching her uncleaned handbag – a vessel holding her diary from the year of my birth and the documents of her burial. Her wedding ring rests on my finger.
Through the act of montage, I have physically separated our figures from the original archive to create a new present. For the first time in a lifetime of searching, it is just Me and Mummy, together again.
After eight years of finding my own joy and reconnecting with myself, I am finally Home.
