The Pam Project

My cousin Pam Bonazzo had an idyllic life with a handsome, doting husband/father and two beautiful children.

That was until Pam’s infant son was diagnosed with bone cancer. Pam spent months in a children’s hospital in Boston with her son and daughter while her husband worked in another state during the week and drove to Boston for the weekends.

Shocking and sadly, in 1988, while Pam waited for him to arrive in Boston, Joe’s heart gave out, and he died at just 38 years old.

Her beloved son passed away in 2005 at 20, and Pam heartbreakingly followed in 2009 at 57. After she died, I vowed to one day do something meaningful in her honor, although I didn’t know what or how.

When Covid hit New York in March of 2020, I obsessed over dollhouses, renovating two and building one from scratch. My life was out of my control but I was in full control of the lives in the dollhouses.

Around the same time, I watched a show about the ancient Egyptians. They believed that when they died, their spiritual body continued to exist in an afterlife and that a person died not once but twice.

The first death was their final breath. And the second and final death was the last time someone uttered their name.

That’s how The Pam Project came to be.

Pam’s spirit could live on for as long as I spoke of her!

What better way to honor Pam’s memory than to build and donate dollhouses in her name?

The photos below are of “The Victoria,” my first Pam Project, and a work in progress in memory of my unforgettable cousin Pam. I already have a little girl in mind to give it to!