Beginnings in Caregiving

Beginnings are rarely simple. Finding My Way is the first drawing in the Holding Pattern series, created after my father returned home with his diagnosis. At that time, there were ripples of what was to come, but mostly it was about learning what came next—understanding how our lives had changed and what that meant for the future.

I was relieved he had come home alive, but in a single night, I shifted from helping a capable parent with a few needs to becoming a full-time caregiver. We all thought we had more years before this moment. But as I later learned, my father had been fighting, avoiding, and denying his health challenges for longer than any of us realized. By the time he was bound to a bed, my own body was still moving through recovery from the cancer I had fought in 2020. Recovery—whether from illness, grief, or caregiving—is never quick. It’s just as much a journey as the event itself.

In American society, we often tell ourselves that once the hardest part is over, the aftermath is short. I’ve found this to be untrue. The “after” requires even more time—time to weave what we’ve endured into the fabric of our lives, time to carry forward what we’ve survived.

For my father, the path became one of memories and wishes fulfilled: from the city lights of his birthplace in New York, to the Sangre de Cristo mountains of Colorado, and finally to the Pacific Coast, where he said goodbye to this world. For me, the path was one of rewriting an unraveling life into something new.

The color purple holds this piece together. My palette often rests in yellow (joy), blue (peace), and green (harmony). Purple, however, means inspiration—a union of blue’s peace and red’s motivation. Inspiration is the mother of solutions. It’s the moment when calm inner space meets forward motion. My spouse once joked that purple is “the color I use when I’m trying to get shit done.” In Finding My Way, purple is both the reminder and the resolve: peace and motivation together will always point us toward the next step.

I know many of you have faced your own unravelings—loss of a job, a court case, a relationship, or sudden change that knocks over every domino in your life. This piece is a reminder that while those first days are full of “What now?”, the path ahead is rarely random. Red whispers, “You’ve got this,” while blue steadies you with, “You are okay.”

As you move through this series, my hope is that you feel seen. These eight drawings explore not only grief and loss, but also recognition, resilience, and endurance. They are a record of finding my way through years I thought would break me, only to discover that they had reshaped me instead.

Because of the depth of this journey, I have chosen to frame the original eight drawings together as a single work. Prints of the individual drawings will be made available soon, but the originals will remain whole. This feels like the truest way to honor the story.

Salud y Vida, friends.
— Ava