“First Love”
I painted First Love during my time as a palliative care nurse, sitting with people and their families in life’s final chapters. In that space between presence and goodbye, I was often moved by the tenderness that lingers - not just grief, but deep remembering. This exposure to death and dying was no preparation for my own experience of loss.

My former husband had recently passed. Though our marriage had ended years before, we once shared a powerful love. This painting emerged not from sorrow alone, but from the warmth of memory - the safety, the sweetness, and the way we truly saw one another.

Painting became my way of honouring both the love and the loss, without needing to separate them. The soft layering of brushstrokes, light-infused colours, and delicate movement reflect the emotional terrain I was walking. Gold threads hold reverence for what once was — not perfect, but deeply human.

First Love is a quiet invitation to remember: what we give and receive in love lives on. Even when relationships change or end, the tenderness remains. This piece becomes a resting place for memory - gentle, honest, and full of heart.