Reagan Carter was a typical 12-year-old. She was popular, had friends, and always had a smile on her face. Melanie Hack was a proud mother and Reagan meant the world to her. In the fall of 2014, a group of girls in her middle school began cyber-bullying Reagan making snide comments online. As the months went by the bullying became more aggressive, with intimidating looks and threatening gestures. After learning about the harassment Reagan was facing, Melanie approached the school principal and implored him to do something about the situation. Melanie says her concerns were brushed off every single time. Melanie, and Reagan’s father, Jimmy Carter, decided that it would be best to transfer Reagan to a different school district in January 2015. In mid-December, Melanie picked up Reagan from her last school ballgame and they returned home. Reagan took her things and went to her room. By 8:30 that night Reagan came to her mom requesting that she take her to the hospital. Concerned, Melanie asked what was wrong. Reagan confessed that she had taken an overdose of prescription cough suppressant pills that can cause a considerable decline in heart rate. Moments later Reagan collapsed and was pronounced brain dead on December 23, 2014. “I am tired of everyone hating me,” were her last words to her mother. Melanie recalls every second of that evening, constantly wondering if there was anything she could have done to save her daughter. “I still feel with every bit of my heart that she didn’t mean to die,” Melanie says, “because she thought her mama could save her. But, I couldn’t. I couldn’t save her."

These are a collection of single photographs from my time in the United States.

Smoke spirals toward the kitchen ceiling as 64-year-old Diane Roberts lights another cigarette, “he is not my grand-
son, he is my son,” she said, while her 7-year- old grandson, AJ, bickers over a video game. Diane’s world has always revolved
around family — her parents, her three children — Tony, Bobbie, Sam, and later, her grandchildren. When she retired 11-years- ago, she sought to spend the rest of her days with family, being a grandmother, playing cards, traveling outside of Millfield, possibly getting a post-retirement job, and maybe even resting. In a heartbeat, all of that changed on Sunday, March 20, 2016.
As the winter began to give in to spring, while Diane and AJ slept soundly tucked away in the other room of their three-bedroom home. Her eldest child, Tony, died of an overdose of prescription painkillers. Overnight, Diane went from being AJ’s grandmother to his kinship care provider — or as he puts it, “mom.”
“I made a promise to Tony, if anything ever happened to him, I would take care of AJ,” Diane said. “And, what kind of life would that child have had if I had not took him.”

This is an ongoing project.