Dear Reader:

The only time I wanted to be an artist ( with all my heart) was the night I put an enlarged photo next to my mother’s coffin and another at the entrance to the door in the funeral home.

Mother had given me one photo taken at the Summerville Presbyterian Church a couple of years before her passing and she said that was the last photo she was having taken… no more.

And I knew at the entry this would be the faced recognized by the congregation who might be attending… but to me the photo wasn’t my mother… she wasn’t smiling and looked rather stern… not the mother I wanted to convey.

If I had my way… everyone’s final photo-portrait would be a picture of them at 5, 6, or 7… snaggle-toothed and grinning from ear to ear… not a care in the world … little boys with freckles and cowlicks… little girls ( perhaps with freckles) and one pig-tail braid in tact and the other pigtail loose and crazy falling free with a ribbon hanging on for dear life. No bother or concern about looks-hair or protruding ” big teeth” knocking out the baby teeth.

To me that is the last stage of development where you are carefree from uniformity and societal expectations… ” you are free to be me.” Eyes are bright with dreams still in fantasy… never is one more alive.!!!!

Aunt Eva had only shown me one picture of her and Lucille( mother was younger by four years-as children- on the back it said Lucille 6- Eva – 10.)

Mother was the baby-carefree but determined to do things her way… a little rebel… you could see the contrast between demure Eva and wild Lucille way back then.

I remember Eva had curly hair but mother’s was dark and straight as a stick… cut in a ” bowl” cut… but mother was smiling as if she owned the world in droopy overalls and bare feet…( never saw the photo again-the only one of their childhood. )

That night when we gathered at the reception room in the funeral parlor… I so badly wished I could draw that wild, carefree little girl who would grow up to be my mother/she would need every bit of her rebellious spirit on not giving up on life -instead choosing to live it through example. In my head the canvas is not blank … because there was nothing boring about mother… she was never ever a blank canvas!

In a book I am reading now… I came across this observation by the author that made me stop and make an entry in my notebook.

” If I had the chance to iron out the creases in my life before it ended, which ones would I choose to smooth over – which parts and pleats would I most want to unfold… so they could no longer dent the picture of the person I wished to be remembered as? “

” Personally I think that some wrinkles and stains on the fabric of our lives are there for a reason . ” ( Alice Feeney)

So until tomorrow… Look what I found when I pulled ” accidental drawings or paintings.” Some of the best pictures of all!

Spilt Coffee created the silhouette of this forest!

Today is my favorite day-Winnie the Pooh