Brooks Brothers Madison Oxford in University Blue, 16 1/2 x 33”
Brooks Brothers Madison Oxford in Cardinal Red, 16 1/2 x 33”
Brooks Brothers Madison Oxford in University Blue, 16 1/2 x 33”
Brooks Brothers Madison Oxford in White, 16 1/2 x 33”
Brooks Brothers Madison Dress Shirt in Blue Window Pane Check, 16 1/2 x 33”
Gitman Brothers Dress Shirt in Micro Check Blue, 16 1/2 x 33”
Vineyard Vines Classic Fit Murray Oxford in Gingham, Size L
Scott Barber Organic Cotton Dress Shirt in Plaid, 16 1/2 x 33”
Brooks Brothers Madison Oxford in Red & Blue Check, 16 1/2 x 33”
Peter Millar Nanoluxe Performance Twill in Red Micro Check, 16 1/2 x 33”
Scott Barber Cotton / Merino Check in Mauve, Size L
I lost my father to a random act of violence on the night of June 7, 2019. I was out of town at the time, and after making an overnight drive to get to Memphis, I headed straight to my childhood home. There was a compulsive urge for me to find a piece of my dad that still remained. I unlocked the front door of the house and was pushed toward my parents' bedroom, as if some sort of force was guiding me. Sliding back the doors of his closet, my eyes were directed upwards at what seemed like a mountain of dry-cleaned shirts still wrapped in plastic from David Palvado Exclusive Cleaners.
A memory of driving to this particular dry cleaner with my dad as a child came clear again, one I’d long forgotten. We would go there often because he always had his shirts cleaned and pressed for the workweek. I’m not sure why he decided to take me along, but I’d like to think he was showing me something about himself.
I reached for the shirts and began to stack them on the floor. I grabbed them carefully, one by one. As my hands touched the plastic wrapping and the weight of the shirt folded over my index fingers, I couldn’t help but feel these were delicate articles of my father that should be preserved.
Grief is unmappable. It is not like chapters in a book. Grief has no beginning or end; it seeps and shifts into every crevice of daily life. Its presence is unannounced at the grocery store, the gym, or a wedding. Its effects are universal and are usually brought on by death: the death of a friend, family member, or relationship.
My relationship with the world and myself was forever changed after my father’s murder in 2019. These pictures are about grief, death, and healing. Not healing in the sense of being cured, resolved, or repaired, but learning how to live with the unthinkable. Whether my dad knew it or not, he did show me something about himself in all those trips to David Palvado Exclusive Cleaners.
“Grief has no distance. Grief comes in waves, paroxysms, sudden apprehensions that weaken the knees and blind the eyes and obliterate the dailiness of life.” - Joan Didion