Some parents never stop being parents. Whereas some see their children grow up and fly the coop for independence, work, further education or family, some may never come back. For a startling amount of Appalachian grandparents, the only kid they see step back through the door is a much smaller, younger, softer child in need of a home. Before they know it, they’re running around, juggling personal responsibilities and raising a child, as if they’re 35 all over again. What one can call this is Maw’s love – an old-fashioned, gritty type of perseverance, guardianship and obligation to love and care. And it’s all over these pages.
“With everything I do in my work, I like to stick around long enough until I see every side of the story and the people within it. I met some of these families during their hardest chapters, some during their happiest times, and sometimes that would even shift,” says Anthony. “I was a friend, even considered a family member to some of them, so it was hard to frame an image of a loved one going through a hard time. It definitely weighed on me.” It’s not always about capturing a feeling in real-time with Anthony – sometimes he would walk away from a visit without taking a single photograph, but on the drive back he would catch a flickering moment in flowing rivers, autumnal graveyards, abandoned buildings that would represent grandfamilies in metaphorical, spiritual ways.