I left her today after being at m parents' for almost 5 weeks. I feel uneasy and anxious, but I must return to my main home to recalibrate.

My heart breaks a little bit every day. I have accepted how this will affect me and my life and I am coming to peace with it. What I find impossible to accept is the pain I feel when I see in her eyes that she understands what is happening. It's the little things that you pick up on when you know somebody so well.

I struggle with the pain I feel thinking of my father losing his partner. March 25 marked 39 years of a love marriage for my parents. He told me that she is his best friend. That she has been the most important thing in his life. That nothing matters more than making her happy. I am lucky to have had a love like this to look up to. These are just words but I have seen over and over again these words come alive. Watching him care for her is heart wrenching and heartwarming. The compassion and love he shows is unparalleled.

I looked through thousands of photos my father took over the years. I have seen their (and my) my story unfold. I've felt every emotion. This is why I take photos. That was a turning point for me. I felt a sadness that I hadn't really broke through to before. It's like I never saw them outside of parents before. Their love existed way before I did.

The other day I was walking with her about 10 feet behind my father. She looks up and exclaims, "He is so cute.' I see the way she looks at him. She loves him so purely. There is this look of love and pain, like she knows his pain. And he doesn't show it in front of her. That is love.

I can tell you the facts and I can share the feelings until I have nothing left to say, but you will not understand. I don't hold that against you. Your mind will process something that isn't a matter of the mind. For your sake, I hope you never understand. 

My relationship with my mother was important to me and I always cherished it. We spent time together and enjoyed each other. We disagreed, respectfully, on many things and didn't always understand each other but we had a special bond. She cared for me so deeply as her child and friend. I hope I can understand that love when I have my own. She won't be here to share that joy with me.

I am lonely now. She is present but she is gone. What you see in the photos is a bright smile on a well-poised woman. These are but calculated moments. I tell her I love her often. I hug her. I try my best to care for her in a way that doesn't make her feel that she cannot care for herself. She has the strength of a very old person, and the cognition of a very young child. That's not to say there aren't glimpses of herself, but those are few and far between and nowhere near where she was before her seizure. She may not be able to fully process and communicate her thoughts, but I am certain her heart and mind still understand at some level.

Her MRI a few days ago showed significant tumor growth. It's now spread to both sides of her brain in the frontal lobe. That's the thought processing center. She has a hemorrhage on the side that has the most growth. That means bleeding. 

Surgery in this location and for this tumor is not an option.

I don't think the clinical trial is working, and if it is it's not fast enough. Even if we continue with it, she can barely handle it. 45 pills a day for 7 days. These are not tiny pills and this is a woman who has been adverse to pills all her life. The best way to describe what those pills did to her was zombify her. She had a hard time in the first round, I'm not sure she could make it through the second one even if she wanted to. That doesn't seem like a viable treatment anymore.  

Avastin, plan B IV chemo, is out because of the bleeding.

We have two options left. 

The first is radiation, again. Risky on the frontal lobe with lots of side effects. She did well in her first round a year ago. That was a year ago. Radiation is not a cure. It will HOPEFULLY reduce growth or shrink the tumor. It is a pause button at best. I don't know if you know, but radiation involves being bolted to a table under a simulated mask so that you cannot move. The radiation is then administered to the exact spot of the tumor. My mother never really talked about it in detail, but she said it was unpleasant. She always had a penchant for masking the negative emotions. But on mention of the mask she shuddered. Once after treatment, I saw the mask in the basement and asked her if she was going to keep it. She said vehemently, "No! I don't want that thing in my home." Isn't that all you need to know?

The second is to forego these interventional treatments and let it take it's course, administering whatever meds are needed to control pain.

Time and quality of life are not the same. How do you honor someone's wishes when they cannot tell you what those wishes are? She made it clear when she was healthy, how she did and did not want to live. But that doesn't make our decisions easier or clearer. All we can do is hope that we are making her as happy and comfortable as she can be. That we are honoring her soul. We must do what is best for her, not what feels best for us.

This is fucking hard. This hurts.

These past few years I've become so sedentary. I've been waking up early and going on runs. I don't love running, especially not in the city. Out here, though, it's calming. The birds chirp excitedly, bunnies and quails dart from all directions, the sun creeps out from behind the mountains and I'm able to think.

My parents found a bunch of my middle school art stashed away during their move last month. I had no idea they had saved all of this through multiple homes. I have to say I'm surprised by how good these are and I really really want to create again. 

This is funny. I think I really wanted to visit the Taj Mahal. I also loved wearing vests over tshirts.

Found my colored pencil rendition (circa 2005) of one of my two favorite photos I've ever taken. In high school I spent a summer in rural Pakistan working with a non-profit on a mission to provide basic education and healthcare to the country's poorest communities. It's something I'll never forget. I'm of Pakistani descent, but I'm born and raised in America. Although we visited Pakistan every year until I was college, this trip allowed me to truly see how a large part of this country lives. The land and the people are incredibly beautiful and have such a rich culture. Maybe I'll write some more about this in a separate post.

I have always been close with my mother, but we have not always been verbal about our love for each other. It's just understood in our own ways. When she was diagnosed 1.5 years ago with brain cancer, I started saying the "I love you"s and the feelings. It felt a little awkward, but I knew I had to. I sent her letters in the mail, I wrote her short notes in email, and I called her more. I was planning on having an intimate conversation with her about all the things I had truly been putting off saying. Then it became the textbook regret.

This past weekend, on Sunday, February 28, she had a small seizure. That was a real turning point. Before she showed acute symptoms: a bit of difficulty coming up with a word here and there, being a little more forgetful and more fatigue. But now she is different. In the 24 hours it took me to get to Phoenix, I heard things got pretty bad. She was just blank. 

Seeing your mother, an always bold, opinionated, independent woman become a little lost, confused and a shell of what she was before is heartbreaking. The change is unfathomable. I know every day a little more of her is lost. She had full eyes and a sharp mind. She doesn't talk much, she barely eats, and I'm not sure where the disconnects are. It's incredibly difficult to be with someone physically but mentally they have slipped away. The severity and quickness of it all is hard to process. My heart and mind are scrambled, and I am filled with fear. These are the sad facts of life. Disease, loss, heartbreak. There's nothing you can do but love.

I can still feel her love.

The night I arrive in Phoenix it is late and she is asleep. I lay in bed staring up into the darkness, wired, unable to sleep. I hear someone outside in the kitchen. I find her standing at the sink and say hello, completely unsure of what I will receive back. She perks up, smiles and shows excitement that I am there. I ask her if she is getting water because she has a glass in her hand. She says she must be, she doesn't know. I tell her let's go to bed. She stops at all the light switches and I reassure her that I'll turn the lights off when I go to bed. Walking with our arms around each other she suddenly stops and points out the window and proclaims with glee, 'Oh look!' I'm not sure what she's pointing to, but I assume it's the waterfall in the pool. I had mentioned a few times how peaceful I thought it was. Instead she points up at the moon with a huge childlike grin, 'That thing, the chand'. She doesn't seem to be able to verbalize it, but I see sparkles in her eyes. She just stares at it happily. She shrugs at the moon and says softly "It is what it is". When we get to her bed, she motions for me to get in next to her. She lays there facing me, eyes closed. She drapes one arm on me and places my arm in her hand. She strokes my hair and my arms, her hands shaking, and I feel a connection through her touch. This is her thing. For as long as I can remember, she's massaged us. I feel more love than any words could ever make me feel. I hope she feels mine.

Opening up about my mother's story, an integral part of my story, has been comforting. I didn't feel the time was right before, but I always felt like I wasn't portraying my full self. I've decided to change that. I don't want to censor myself or worry about how what I put out into the world is received. Authenticity is important. I want to share my life more transparently, warmly and intimately. I'm building up my reserve of happy through photos and words.

I've traveled 'home' often and home in Phoenix will likely be a monthly event now. My sister has lived there for a decade and with my parents moving there last month, it feels even more right. Home is wherever my family is, as that saying about the heart goes. They lived in Columbus for 10 years, but the moment they left it had nothing for me. The only trip I took in college that wasn't with family was during my senior year. This was completely my decision and my desire. And I am so happy that spending time with them is not something I feel I should have done more of.

I spent a week working remotely from my parents' earlier this month. Many of my photos are of them, or of the mundane. Really whatever I find beautiful in the moment.

We went to the Desert Botanical Garden for Bruce Monro's Sonoran Light installation. Thousands of feet of fiber optic lights illuminating the desert landscape. Very pretty.

Not all backyards are created equal. The waterfall runs during the day and is one of the most pleasant sounds. 

Aziz is an easy subject.

Nature is too. Twin roses and refraction rainbows.

We LOVE to eat. It's really all we do and how we plan our time. Chinese food is a favorite.

Again with Aziz.

I really liked this moment. There's something really sad about how hugely manmade this scene is, but at the same time the sound of the water and the greenery is just so beautiful.

Sister time at Ocotillo for dinner and drinks.

I am currently obsessed with roasted chickpeas. I toss them in olive oil, salt, garlic and a heavy hand of chili seasoning then roast for an hour at 350. I only make one can at a time because I have no portion control.

She was diagnosed with Stage 4 Gliosarcoma in September of 2014, on her 62nd birthday. Gliosarcoma is a rare and aggressive form of brain cancer with a poor prognosis. There weren't really warnings and everything changed quickly and forever. A seemingly healthy, boisterous, spirited woman, it was completely unexpected. She passed out one day and it turns out it was a tumor. "We must be brave" are the words of my 4-year old niece. There's a beauty and truth in the innocence of childhood. I share this with you because it is a part of me. It affects my soul.

She underwent surgery to remove as much of the tumor as they could. These types of tumors are hard to fight though. Essentially, they have tentacles that permeate the brain and they're quick to come back. They said she had 12-14 months left. She didn't cry, but we did. She's been so brave.

For 6 weeks she did combined radiation/oral chemotherapy. Radiation involves lying on a table encapsulated by a mold of your upper body so that you cannot move even a centimeter as the laser blasts away. She continued another 4 months of just chemo until they suggested another 6 months after that because she wasn't having severe side effects and they figured it could only help. She's an incredibly strong and determined woman and the chemo seemed like a piece of cake. That's not what her body tells us though. 

It's extremely hard to see anyone go through this but it breaks your heart to watch someone you love, someone who has given every last ounce of their being for others and has never been weak face this struggle. My Ami, my mother. It's been difficult accepting that she is not okay and that there is little that can be done. There is so much uncertainty. At the same time there are those things we know.

17 months after diagnosis brings us to January 2016. That's 3 months longer than what the doctors said to expect. Hope starts to creep in and since she doesn't outwardly appear sick you've almost forgotten. At the end of the month during a standard MRI, they find a new tumor. Same type, different location, unable to perform surgery. She's been tired for a few months but she's been on chemo so it seemed expected. She's seemed generally normal until now. Then within a matter of weeks she begins to change. Short term memory is suffering, she becomes more easily agitated and all of a sudden she's aged years. This is the tumor taking its toll on her brain. 

Luckily she is accepted into a Tocagen clinical trial. We still don't know what this ultimately means, but during her biopsy they injected her brain with a virus that is supposed to keep the tumor from growing or spreading. She takes a daily pill to combat the tumor in place of traditional chemo. 

Until it happens to someone close to you it's hard to truly feel how scary and fucked up and mysterious cancer is. I understood it with my mind before, but I didn't comprehend the intricacies that rip your heart apart. I still can't imagine what it feels like to be the patient or the spouse. Their 40th wedding anniversary is in March. As a daughter, it pains me to see her go through this. I feel sad that there will soon come a day that I will be without her. But I feel a greater pain that she must endure what feels so unfair. Something that is physically and mentally destroying her. Something that will turn her into what she feared most. I'm sad for my father. I'm sad for anyone in the world that must lose someone they love to disease or any other force.

Nothing can make it better or make it hurt less, but I can choose understanding and acceptance. My perspective changes. I know the one thing I can control is my mindset. I am grateful for all the good years and for all the love. I am grateful. I must take something positive from this. I must not let this tear me apart. It's important to love and find value in one's being. It's important not to be scared, not to let fear hold you back. Enjoy yourself, enjoy others and do what feels right. The time is never right, but at least we have good times and love. We do what we can.

Took a quick trip to Columbus to be with family a few weeks ago. Decided on that trip that I really wanted to take photos. I've felt so uninspired and unfocused with my photography for the past 6 months. It's so exciting to find beauty, lights, angles and to simply capture a moment. Feeling good about it again.

This was the most snow I've ever experienced in New York. The streets closed to civilian vehicles and it was sort of magical and weird. There was so much joy that day.