I wonder every day if my brother Jamie, who has a substance abuse disorder, is dead or alive. Our last phone call was in August of 2018. I have never known life without my younger brother, he was always there. Our relationship is the reason I have two children; I couldn't imagine life without a sibling, but I can now.

While I Wait is my emotional journey through ambiguous loss, a term coined by psychologist Pauline Boss in the 1970s. It describes the experience of those left to grieve someone who is alive, or gone, but not indefinitely. As I sift through old boxes of family snapshots of birthdays, vacations, and Christmases, all captured with smiles and hugs, I wonder why does he struggle with addiction when I do not? How can I protect my children from going down a similar path? Our last conversations were painful and confusing for me. When Jamie texted, "You ain't my sister no more" his words stung with no relief. We share the same blood, but am I still a sister?

I am in a limbo, where closure is not an option. Through this project, I explore the reoccurring pain, isolation, and loneliness that comes with having a loved one who is swallowed up by addiction. Through combining my own images, archival photographs, and Jamie's text messages, I explore what love looks like for someone who is waiting, remembering, searching and questioning. The story might change, I hope it will, but I have to wait for the next chapter. This is an elegy to a lost relationship between a brother and a sister.