EJ in the window, 2006. His mother, Carolynne St. Pierre, is on the left.
He lost his mom at an early age. These photos of his life honor her memory
Photographs by Preston Gannaway
Story by Kyle Almond, CNN
Published May 12, 2024
EJ in the window, 2006. His mother, Carolynne St. Pierre, is on the left.
Carolynne St. Pierre was just 44 years old when she died from a rare form of liver cancer in 2007.
The mother of three was a maternity nurse in Concord, New Hampshire.
“That was a big part of her identity,” photographer Preston Gannaway said. “She was a wonderful mother and just such a natural, sensitive, caretaker in so many ways. And she had just a fantastic sense of humor. She was known for her quick wit and was making jokes up until the very end.”
In her final months, St. Pierre opened up her home to Gannaway, who at the time was working for the Concord Monitor newspaper. Gannaway and reporter Chelsea Conaboy documented the family’s struggle with a series of stories over the course of almost two years.
“We were in the room with Carolynne when she died,” Gannaway said. “And the majority of the work we did actually was after she had passed, showing what happened after that, how the family coped, what life was like for them.”
The series was headlined “Remember Me,” and many photos focused on the youngest son, Elijah, better known as EJ.
“A lot of the motivation for them opening up their lives to us was that Carolynne was really scared that EJ would be too young to remember her at all,” Gannaway said.
With that in mind, St. Pierre and her husband, Rich, spent many of her last days writing letters and recording videos for their children to have after she was gone.
EJ was 4 when his mom died. One of Gannaway’s photos, taken a few months later, show him and his dad planting a tree in his mom’s memory on Mother’s Day.
“Initially that was a big part of my interest in the story: What happens after someone’s gone?” Gannaway said.
Gannaway left the newspaper not too long afterward, but she didn’t want the story to end there.
“Because of what I had gone through with them, I felt such an intense bond and an intimacy,” she said. “I couldn’t just move on with my life and lose touch with Rich and EJ — that just felt wrong. So in part to maintain that connection, I would go back to visit regularly and I would bring my camera.”
For the next 17 years, Gannaway has continued to photograph EJ, watching him grow up into the young man he is today. The photos hint at many of the milestones that his mother has missed over the years, such as school dances, graduations and dating.
“I’ve always been comfortable with Preston taking photos,” said EJ, who’s now a student at the University of New Hampshire. “She’s been taking photos since I was a little kid, so she’s just kind of always been there.”
Last year, the project was published into a book, “Remember Me,” and it is now being exhibited at the Chung 24 Gallery in San Francisco.
“The original stories were about Carolynne fighting against time,” Gannaway said. “The project now is more a meditation on time itself.”
It explores themes of mortality, loss and masculinity, and she said she often thinks about Carolynne when she’s in New Hampshire taking photos.
“I also want to keep it loose enough that it’s not only about EJ and Rich and Carolynne, but that it’s also open enough so that everyone can relate to it in some way,” she said. “We’ve all experienced loss; it’s just such a fundamental part of the human experience and it comes in many different forms.”
EJ says he often struggled as a child, dealing with the grief and not having his mother around. “I was not a great kid. I was a very angry kid. But I got through it because of my family,” he said.
His dad also lost his mother at a young age, so he could identify with what his son was going through. EJ called Rich “the rock of my life.”
“I wouldn’t be anywhere without him,” he said. “He got me help through therapy. And I’ve had really supportive family, my stepfamily as well. And that kind of helped me get through all the struggles and emotions when I was a young kid.”
EJ is now studying marine biology and is in the Air National Guard. He wants to go to graduate school and eventually do some research on cephalopods — specifically octopuses.
“I’ve always loved the water. I’ve been obsessed with the water since I was a little kid, whether it’s fresh or salt,” he said. “I love fishing. I’ve been really obsessed with cephalopods since I was a little kid, and it just never left me.”
Gannaway said it has been fascinating to watch EJ evolve over the years.
“He’s earnest. He’s balanced. He’s very much a free thinker,” she said. “And he is always searching for what the right thing to do is.”
His dad told Gannaway in the book that EJ “has a sweetness to him that his mother had.”
Gannaway now lives in California, but she goes out to New Hampshire two or three times a year to catch up with EJ and the family and take photos.
“As time passed, I came to truly love who he was becoming,” she said.
As EJ looks back at Gannaway’s photos of him, he is very thankful for her work.
“It gave me a way to look back on my life and kind of appreciate where I’ve been and how far I’ve come and what I’m still doing,” he said. “I tend to be probably harder on myself than I really should be when it comes to school, when it comes to work and when it comes to other things. I’m a bit of a perfectionist. So being able to look back and just acknowledge that a lot has happened in my lifetime and it’s OK if I’m not doing everything right now — I have an entire life to do what I want to do. The book gave me that perspective and appreciation of just how far me and my family have come.”
Gannaway says that while so much of the project is about aging, the passage of time and how someone’s presence lingers long after they’re gone, she’s also interested in the idea of place and how it can shape us.
“I very much see rural New Hampshire as a character in the book, and I wanted to get that across,” she said. “I love it when people who have spent time in that area or have some connection to New England can identify with that.”
EJ says the only vivid memory he has of his mom is when she passed away. He was just so young. But he says she will never be forgotten.
“She continues to live on through me and through her other kids and through our family,” he said.
He cherishes all the memories that his family has shared with him about his mom, and he hopes the book can help other families who have young children dealing with similar loss.
“The only memories they’re going to have is the ones that you impart onto them,” he said. “And it’s really important that you remind the kids how much they were loved and how much their mothers — or fathers, any other lost family members and friends — truly loved them and wished they could have been there for the rest of their life.”
Every Mother’s Day, EJ and Rich visit Carolynne’s grave and replace some roses.
“Unfortunately, I will not be around this Mother’s Day, so we’re going to have to plan another day to do it,” EJ said. “But that’s what we do. That’s our tradition.”
Another tradition will live on as well: Gannaway will continue to take photos of EJ and keep the “Remember Me” project going.
“I think we see it as a sort of living document that we all created with Carolynne,” Gannaway said. “It’s just one more way to memorialize her.”
Preston Gannaway’s “Remember Me” project is being exhibited at the Chung 24 Gallery in San Francisco until May 18.
