In 2003, my parents and I moved from midtown Manhattan to suburban Maryland. Over a year later, in 2004, my mother passed away from her second battle with breast cancer. It was just my father and I now. I was 13 and it was the loneliest I ever felt.

Fifteen years later, I'm no longer that lonely 13-year-old. I'm a photographer and a public school teacher, something she never got to see, and that stays in my mind a lot: the connection I could have had with her as an adult. With this in mind, I decided to drive from Baltimore to Montana, where my mother's family leased a lakeside cabin where we spent many summers over the decades.

After years of feeling apart from my mom's family, the idea of reconnecting with them empowered me. Talking with her brothers, her best friend, and everyone else gave her life to me again. A life I hadn't felt in a long time.

This series of photos details my solo roadtrip to the cabin just north of Kalispell, MT, stopping at her childhood home in Minnesota, a premier Chicago hotel where she was the assistant rooms manager for over 2,500 rooms, and many other places in between.