First Times and Last Times is a narrative project documenting the many ways in which my grandparents' lives have changed since my grandmother’s diagnosis with Alzheimer’s disease. My grandparents, Robert and Linda (Grandpop and Granna), have been lifelong partners since their first date in Austin, Texas at fifteen years old. After Linda was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in 2016, both were forced to adapt to a magnified sense of time, a new set of rules; a new reality. By 2022, Linda had become mostly nonverbal and had infrequent spells of lucidity compared to just a few months prior. I lived with my grandparents for the better part of the Summer of 2022 in order to learn about their faith and resilience and to create a record of this moment in time for my family.
First Times and Last Times is intended to be read left to right; though not every image is in chronological order, the evolution of Robert and Linda’s behavior is presented as I observed it from June to September of 2022. As Linda’s condition worsens, Robert’s character intensifies. He evolves into a desperate caretaker and protector while, somewhere buried, is a grieving husband forced to confront death after working alongside it for over fifty years as a Lutheran pastor.