Searching for the April Moon, a collection of essays by writer and photographer Nancy Robertson, looks at the questions of growing up, growing old and the shifting values those processes visit upon a daughter and her family.

Through these very personal family portraits Robertson reaches out to all children caring for ageing parents. She tackles hard questions – coping with the sadness of her parents’ mental and physical decline, facing the risks when her mother struggles to stay in her own home, struggling with the guilt when she goes into residential care and, through all  this, learning to find time for her own adult children, for her partner and for herself.

The main locale is Prince Rupert, a small city on the north coast of British Columbia. But, as Roberson is both an artist and a passionate traveler, she weaves in visits to the galleries of New York, London and Paris, to the pounding surf and deserts of Baja and to the curious community of Slab City, California.

Robertson’s essays show us that courage and creativity combined with acceptance and patience are essential in our relationships with the aged. And above all they show that honesty is the one value that enable those relationships to keep growing even as they near their end.