How Creating my Own Rituals Helped me Grieve for my Mother

I’m a skeleton collector. I have a large sea-washed radius from a sperm whale beached on the sands in Orkney. Part of its flipper, its hand...

I’m a skeleton collector. I have a large sea-washed radius from a sperm whale beached on the sands in Orkney. Part of its flipper, its hand. One of my most treasured possessions is an early Victorian piece of scrimshaw, engraved with portraits of two women - maybe the whaler’s wife and daughter or maybe his lovers in different ports - made from a sperm …