I am creating an image a week through the Sony Alpha Female 52 Week Challenge, lead by Brooke Shaden.
Week 1: The Beginning - Out of the Ashes
When someone you love dies, the world doesn't heal - it breaks differently.
They tell you "time will make it better," but time only teaches you how to carry it.
Grief is a second birth: clawing through ash, breathing smoke, standing on scorched ground.
You rise, not whole, but altered — a life remade around absence, stitched from the remnants of what was.
#SAF52WeekChallenge
Week 2: Red — Paint the Roses Red
We cut flowers from their roots, watch them wither, and call it comfort.
Grief makes us do strange things — clutching beauty that’s already dying in our hands.
When he was alive, he brought her red roses, his favorite.
She loved yellow best, but it made her smile to see him happy.
Love is sacrifice stitched with thorns — and in the end, we are left holding stems that bleed.
#SAF52WeekChallenge
Week 3: Light: Light a Candle
Grief presses us into the earth, a silent, endless weight.
We reach for anything — anything — that might let us breathe.
I was raised Catholic, once taught that death meant lighting a candle,
setting a small fire against the endless dark,
letting it burn until the wick surrendered on its own.
I don’t believe in gods anymore, but still, I believe in flame.
In our home, my husband and I have built an altar —
a shelter of memories —
photographs, relics, pieces of faith that once held our loved ones steady.
We light candles for them, not because we expect salvation,
but because the light still speaks.
Because sometimes, in the trembling glow,
we remember how to carry the weight.
#SAF52WeekChallenge
Week 4: Fantasy: Portal to What Was
