My beautiful mamma, she never wanted you to bring her flowers. "They die too soon," she would say. She only wanted plants, which, under her watch, flourished.

I began painting for the first time in full force just days after my beautiful mamma died. The desire to paint wasn’t something I’d dreamed of for years or planned with any logic; it arrived like a tidal wave of necessity. I felt compelled to pour vibrant colors and textures onto canvas, as if the sounds of the brushstrokes—soft, sweeping, and alive—might somehow stir the silence left by her absence. It wasn’t about replacing her beauty—how could I? Instead, it became my way of expressing the unspoken, of capturing the ache and love that words couldn’t contain.

My art is because of her, for her, and I know she would have loved these eternal flowers.