It’s no surprise that the approach of Thanksgiving has me thinking of family. My parents were down to earth, generous people who made it a special holiday as I was growing up. I can picture mom in her apron, carrying the big bird to the oven. Dad got called to action when it was time for power tools— the electric knife. Sadly, Thanksgiving has never been the same since my parents both passed; mom in 2008 and dad in 2011.
My mom was the heart of the family. But she was other things too. She was a kind person, giving of her time to others through church and community. She was musical, singing in the church choir and performing occasionally at weddings or my grandmother’s assisted living facility. She made most of our clothes when we were young.
And you know what else? For a while, she painted.
She must have been in her fifties when she took a class. She learned to paint with oils, joined a group of other women who got together weekly to paint and talk. She seemed to focus intently on this interest for a few years. She painted and my dad made frames, and she gave most of her art away as gifts. I have three of them here at Sunrise Farm. She was a specialist with the palette knife, and often painted from greeting card images.
When she retired from her admin job at a local hospital, they gave her a wooden art box and some supplies to continue her interest, but to my knowledge she never painted again. There were other things needing needing her attention.
Not many years before she passed, I asked her how she defined herself and her life. She said she was a caregiver. It’s true, she cared for her parents, her sister, her grandchildren, a neighbor, a family friend, people from church. That always came first, before any other interest. I didn’t admire her selfless nature at the time. I was an NYC career woman, and I felt that caregiving was a part of me, but could never be the whole.
And so, years later, I began painting around the same age. My mom was not here to see me pursue this new interest, but she had always supported my need for creativity. When I was maybe 14-15, she enrolled me in charcoal and chalk pastel classes at the Mechanicsburg Art Barn. When I moved to New York, she paid for voice lessons after I talked enthusiastically about going to a show at a voice school near my office. I am sure my.art would have her full support too.
They say as we get older, we see our parents in ourselves more and more. That is definitely true. I am my own person, and yet I have also become my mother. I don’t think I will ever be the caregiver she was. I have more of my father’s reserve. But I certainly am a caregiver on a much larger scale than I ever considered back then.
So, Mom, thank you for supporting and inspiring me. I hope you like my art, and my kids (two of whom you never met), and the person I’ve become.