The Long Goodbye is an ongoing exploration of loss and displacement experienced following the deaths of my paternal grandparents. It follows on from previous published work Nonna to Nana: Stories of food and family that represented a form of living preparation for future grief and loss. “Who’s going to cook like Nonna, once she’s gone?” my father exclaimed, all those years ago. Their home, and the productive garden surrounding it, was the beating heart of our family. A central vessel that contained our lives, love, pain and nourished us both physically and emotionally and without them, it slowly died. Stripped bare for the lure of new inhabitants and prepared for auction, the real-estate images depraved of any semblance of its life before. Drawing from the family archive and lumens, the home is reconstructed.
Memory and the merging of love and grief.
