"I hold your hand and, carefully, try to capture it. Imprint on my brain the texture of your wrinkly skin, the warmth of your touch, the way your fingers wrap around mine."
After seven years of illness, my father's battle with his cancer was coming to an end. I was torn between conflicting emotions, as my sister became a mother around the same time my father’s health declined. Watching a new life grow whilst another was weakening redefined my understanding of time - it became clear just how fragile life really is.
At times, when home felt too close, nature gave my mind a safe place to rest. All the while, the forest’s slow growth and decay resembled the illness that was consuming life as I knew it.
You Felt the Roots Grow was born in a time between hope and grief. It is my personal experience as a daughter, in which I face the bittersweetness of transience, the poetry within loss and the incompleteness of memory.
This book will be published by Ciao Press and Witty Books in May 2023. Find a pre-order on the respective website.
This book is made possible with the support of the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia.