On December 1st, 2017, Jake and I celebrated our 3rd anniversary. Jake had come over from France to see me, and so I travelled to Bristol, and we both stayed at his grandmother’s for the weekend. I automatically clicked with his nan as I have always got on very well with ‘older people’. It wasn’t until the summer of 2019 that I started to get to know her a lot better. During that summer, my mental health plummeted to an all-time low, I was diagnosed with severe depression and anxiety and later on in that year with Fibromyalgia.
During that summer, Jake would have to go to work, and so I spent a lot of time sitting and chatting with Jake’s nan. We got to know each other very well; I had never adequately spoken to anyone about any of my childhood issues or my mental health until then. She calls herself ‘The Agony Aunt’ as people have always seemed to come to her with their problems. She helped me throughout this summer, and I think I helped her too, to feel less lonely.
In April 2009, Jake’s nan was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease, which turned her whole life upside down. She gradually went from quite an active and busy lady to someone who now can hardly get out of her chair and struggles to do anything for herself. She finds it very difficult to find purpose, and so she does little things such as feeding the foxes and colouring to help her.
Within this photobook, I aim to show her life and how she was before I knew her compared to how she is now and how being burdened with a condition like hers can cause a dramatic decrease in quality of life; which for her, it 100% has. Her daily activities consist of the same thing day in and day out; she does small things like sorting out the recycling. She will make sure to cross out her address on every letter she can, she watches Bargain hunt every day and speaks to her two children, one who lives around 20 minutes away and the other who lives in France. She is very fed up with her life as every day consists of unbearable pains and the frustration of not being able to look after herself gets her exceptionally down.
Looking at photographs of her when she was younger was so exciting but so sad to look at as I don’t know the person who is in them, that person is entirely different to the version of her that I know, it’s almost like looking at a completely different woman.
I wanted to create this book for her, to help her feel purpose and meaning and to help her feel important. I wanted to make something that would help remind her of the amazing life that she had. Help her to remember that even though she is unable to be the person she once was, she can still look back on those memories and enjoy them for they are what makes her a wonderful lady and what makes her the person that I know and appreciate today.