Early on Monday morning, I received a call from a family I hadn’t heard from in years. Their elderly mother had passed away the night before. In that difficult moment, I was the first person they reached out to — before the priest, before the funeral home. They wanted to know if I could photograph her funeral, and my being available seemed to matter deeply to them. They even asked for my guidance in choosing between two churches.

It made me pause and think about how this connection began. Six years ago, I had photographed their father’s funeral and later created a book of memories for them. We hadn’t been in touch since, yet something about that earlier work seemed to have stayed with them. It was humbling to realise how much those images—and that trust—had meant.