the turning point of this year

my grandma and grandpa in their earlier years.
my favorite photo of them, so much joy.

my grandfather was an alcoholic for the majority of his life. he did plenty of horrible things that he nor anyone really ever talks about. a few years before his death he gave up alcohol, joined AA. it was mind blowing how much he had changed. but slowly he began regressing back to his asshole self. i was never really that close to my grandfather,until he stopped drinking. there were numerous things i held against him, how he treated the most wonderful person i've ever met is one of them. but towards the end i really started bonding with him. i was actually one of the few people he would listen too. the excessive drinking for so many years really slowed him down mentally. his thinking process was like using a worn down butter knife to cut a huge tough steak- extremely frustrating. but no matter how many awful things he had done in the past he did not need to suffer the way he did.

in 2008 he had an 8.5 pound tumor removed from the outside of his colon.
in january he went to the doctor for what was believed to be pneumonia. it took weeks before they realized he had leukemia cells in his bone marrow. an up and down with chemo until march. the last week of march he was healthy enough to stand on his own, he actually was supposed to come home. then one day, after his final chemo treatment, while getting up to use the bathroom he fell. he broke his leg. his immune system dropped. they found traces of e-coli in his intestines. four days after my 21st birthday i received a call, he decided to stop all medications, go on a morphine drip, he passed the next morning. watching someone slowly die on morphine is life changing. holding a mans hand while his heart stops is something so, fucked up, but necessary. but she held onto him, faithfully next to his side til his last breath. i felt compelled to draw him.



this was for my final- my descriptive word was sad.
in this image i wanted to portray him being strong yet vulnerable. i want the viewer to recognize his suffering but to know that he is finally at peace. this is the first work of art that someone understood exactly what i was going for, and i was elated.

my grandmother has not seen this image.