After a year of small-town American life with a twist of tropical island paradise, Nancy Borowick finally felt at home in Guam. She had become a certified underwater scuba diver, picked up needlepoint as a hobby and had taken photos mainly to show her friends and family the unusual mixture of island life and military culture in United States territory.

It’s safe to say that we are all affected by cancer. It has tainted our lives through personal experiences or through connections to those we love. No one knows this in a more profound way than photographer Nancy Borowick,who watched two parents suffer the ravages of the disease simultaneously

When Nancy Borowick’s parents Howie and Laurel both faced stage-four cancer together three years ago, the young photographer confronted the family crisis with her camera. She documented not just their struggles, deaths and funerals, but also the many ordinary, everyday moments that had taken on a special urgency.

Nancy Borowick often uses the world surreal when discussing the past two years of her life: Her father was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer that would take his life a year and a day later, and then, her mother, who had also been battling cancer, succumbed to the disease a day before the one-year anniversary of his death. Borowick had been documenting her time with both parents and her two siblings, sometimes joyous, other times painful, and came away with a body of work that is raw in its portrayal of the devastation of cancer but also, more importantly, speaks to the importance and intimacy of family.

When her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer for the second time in 2009, Nancy Borowick, then a student at the International Center of Photography, decided she would document the experience this time around. “Being able to photograph her during the program gave me a chance to spend more time with her than I could have in any other situation,” Borowick, now 26, says. “I really wanted to be along side as she went through all the different stages of treatment and recovery and just experience it with her.”