A personal narrative (YouTube video) in which the speaker recounts a high-school graduation photograph featuring family members—father, older brother, mother, stepmother—and reflects on the mother's cancer, her use of a wig, and the family dynamics shaped by the father's rising fame and the mother's declining mental health after the parents' divorce.
The only picture that exists where it's my dad, my older brother, my mother, me and my stepmother. It was at my high school graduation. In the photo you can see my mom's hair is a little crooked because she's dying of cancer and she's wearing her very best wig to come and put herself in this incredibly vulnerable space to be present. For me, the state of my parents post divorce relationship is really informed by the fact that my dad is going on to become one of the most famous people on the planet as my mother descends into a mental health state that is unable to keep reality in its own lane.
