MOM WAS AN ARTIST AT HEART

Yesterday I posted a story about my Mom and how she loved the artist Norman Rockwell.  I mentioned and posted that my Mom did some drawings of Santa that looked like Norman Rockwell drawings of Santa.  I now ponder the idea that my Mom’s love and attraction to Norman Rockwell was because she was an artist at heart.

When my Mom was in high school, I have been told that she was able to write extremely well and that she was at the top of her high school class.  I did not know that my Mom was able to draw, as well.  I always thought that I had been given my talent genes from my Dad who was a fabulous and brilliant toy designer, however, I now have to rethink the notion that I may have inherited my gift from my Mom or maybe both.  Wouldn’t that be something?  All these years I never knew how much my Mom was able to create.  She went to a day program called The Guild after she left the hospital and there she would make all the decorations for every season and holiday. I have posted some pictures of them.  I particularly love the wreath with the holly berries and leaves.  I think it shows my Mom’s ingenuity and cleverness on how she put the wreath together.  I show a back photo to illustrate the way she attached the leaves and berries.  Being an artist myself. I can tell that this is a creative construction and a solution to the problem.  My Mom figured out how to attack the problem of how to put the wreath together in a certain way.  It is simple yet effective. 

I’d love to know where my creative talent came from because I would be just smitten with the idea that I got it from my Mom.  It is something I cherish about myself so profoundly and to know that my Mom and I shared the same artistic genes would be awesome.  That’s not to say that I don’t love the possibility that it may be because of my Dad’s genes because I adore this idea as well, however, at this point either way I know it is a gift that I have been given.  It has helped me through many a hard time and it has been the anchor in my life.  I could not survive without creating or making artistic things. In it’s extreme I think I would probably wilt over and die if I could no longer create.  What’s interesting about this point is how it may relate to my Mom since she had stopped making the decorations at The Guild say some 6 or 8 years ago and after her friend had passed away. She seemed to have lost her interest in making things. It’s not certain how long my Mom had Liver Cancer and I now see a correlation between her getting sick and not doing creative things anymore.  What’s not clear is if she stopped creating things from being ill with Liver Cancer or if it was because of a depression that she suffered after she lost her friend.  Possibly, it could be both or maybe neither.  As I have expressed my own compelling need to create to survive that is just like breathing, I have to wonder if this was also true for my Mom?  Believe me, I now go to all these places in my mind with questions since my Mom passed away.  Could her loss of desire to create have been a marker for how she was feeling psychologically and physically and even more signaled the beginning of her Liver Cancer?  I do not know the answer to this question and I have to wonder if all this makes any sense?  Basically, I’m trying to make sense out of nonsense!  In the end, I am left with the sadness of knowing that my Mom lost her desire at a certain point in her life which never came back. I am also left with the thoughts and sorrow of how my Mom could never be all she could have been had she not become mentally ill?  I wonder what she might have done with her life and her brilliance? I can only ponder what might have been.  So, at the same time, I try to find the joy of knowing that when my Mom was feeling well, she liked to make things just as I do and inside of her mind and soul was her spirit, which continues to live on through me.  I hope I do right by her.


Thank you so much for reading this post and sharing in my Mom's truth.


As my Mom could have been,
Loren