Paparazzi Children

You would have thought that my aunt and uncle were celebrities, and in a sense, they were! As the four of us prepared to travel to Boonsboro, MD in March of 1996, I remember (vaguely) asking my oldest son (then seven years old) why he wanted to take his toy binoculars to this 50th Wedding Anniversary.

He gave me some version of,
“I’ll be able to see them if they are sitting far away!”

So much innocence and all kinds of goodness regularly pours out of the mouths of babes and from their imaginations! He knew it was something very, very special we were preparing for as we dressed our two sons in (somewhat ill-fitting, hand-me-down, endearing in my mind’s eye…) little suits and bow ties, and their father shined up all their black little shoes.

In fact, I can’t say for certain but when I look at the old photos, that brown dress I had on may have been specially purchased for the occasion. It’s vaguely coming back to me now…I believe I saw this at the Goodwill and it was in such nice shape. (Oh to be the shape I was in at that time, now…yet about two years after the birth of my second son I was very self-conscious, as women are, about the new shape and weight of my body.)

And I can recall setting up this little still-life arrangement of their black shoes, thinking how artsy the image would be, and what it would visually communicate.

Today is my youngest son’s 30th birthday, and this past week I decided that to honor his milestone I would tackle painting from one of my very favorite photos of him and his brother. I’ve been intending to tackle this for years, and now, it has been completed.

The original is 18 x 24 inches and I plan to keep it for the time being, and then, after my sons have seen it, to ask them what size canvas print they might like from it. The canvas prints will be virtually indistinguishable to the naked eye from the original. And, I plan to write a message on the back of the original–on the wood stretcher bars–to my youngest son. And also, to indicate that someday when I pass and they are sorting through items, that he is to get this original painting.

I always loved this particular image for several reasons. The way Jonathan has his little hands clasped together is precious and priceless. When I paint children, I consider the pose and gestures they make with their hands as important—if not more–than the likeness of their face. If one observes small children and infants, especially the pre-verbal, they communicate (and so beautifully) with their hands long before they speak words.

I equally love the gesture and position of Zach’s hands and stance. He is leaning over slightly for the posed photo with his little brother, and he has a protective-looking embrace of Jonathan. He has his binoculars in-hand, and looks rather snazzy, dashing and a bit animated, while Jonathan is visually snuggled in his older brother’s shadow, so-to-speak.

At the end of this piece I will insert other photos taken that day.

But for a moment, I’d like to get back to my thoughts about my aunt and uncle as celebrities, worthy of wanting to view from both afar and close-up at this family shindig!

Fifty years is quite a milestone for marriage—the golden anniversary. Sadly these days, not many couples seem to be making it past the twenty-year mark. That is when my marriage and our little family officially fell apart in 2005. I suppose we would be going on around thirty-nine years, had things not unfolded as they did. I have read that the twenty-year mark is very typical these days for marriages to end in divorce, for several reasons; but of course, not all follow this pattern.

Divorce is a death. It is the death of promises, a death of hopes and dreams, and the death of the family unit as it was intended by God. It’s all a death of what God intended for humans. In Genesis we are told not only of His divine design for a lifelong covenant between a man and a woman, but also, that God made a promise to Abraham that through him, “all families of the earth would be blessed.“

There are times when I think back on things and have various sorrows for other ways our family situation might have unfolded. And surely my aunt and uncle, like all couples, had their share of ups and downs and difficulties.

My Uncle Bill had given me away, on behalf of my deceased father, at my first wedding. The two of them stepped into the role as substitute parents after my father’s death, as seen and felt through my eyes. I cherish quite deeply that their six natural children–my first cousins–shared the space with me and my family, and my sons, in a way I can never fully communicate my gratitude for their love and care.

I’ve also been going through more boxes of photos and stuff this January (I like winter projects) and the other night found some photos that never made it into albums. Two of the photos of Jonathan are so very precious! Perhaps had I seen these two weeks ago I might have tackled one of those with him alone, in honor of his birthday! I will probably print one, large, for him, as an additional gift.

I also found a card and a note that my Aunt Virginia had sent me in August of 2003, which was a very difficult time in the life of our family. My aunt–like many of that era–valued sending little notes and letters to keep in touch and communicate thoughts. Both she and my uncle were people of deep faith, and I know that this faith sustained them through the various times in the life of their family.

Everything is always complicated, as they say. And divorce doesn’t solve anything–it just exchanges one kind of problem for another. And generally, I believe that those who divorce–for whatever reason–make a decision about which problem is most manageable. Unfortunately, we don’t have the luxury with any crossroads in life to know how it might have all unfolded had we chosen differently.

This reminds me also of a little plaque I gave my aunt and uncle for Christmas when I was in college and had first turned to Christ. It said, “Life is fragile, handle it with prayer.” My aunt–a nurse, and also a very detailed, organized woman who faced things head on!–in her later years began gifting back various items they had received during their lifetime, and marking the backs of others for the day when their children might be debating to whom something should go.

So she gifted me back this little plaque on one of our visits in the later years, along with a couch blanket, as well as a beautiful cake plate that she said had been a Christmas gift to them one year from my father, Rodney. The little plaque sits on a window sill, and at holidays I use the cake platter with its etched, beautiful floral patterns.

From my aunt, I’ve learned to start making notes on the back of framed art and photos, here and there…and as I mentioned, I will be inscribing something on the back of this painting for Jonathan to read one day. I might just not show him what I write if we should talk/video again soon, but wait until they can all make it here to my new home for a visit, or maybe even then just let it be to the imagination until some day… I’m hoping that can happen (for them all to come here) before too very long, and in the meantime, am looking forward to visiting them in Maine.

My grandchildren are now almost the age that Jonathan was in this photo, and I know the experience of seeing your child look into your eyes and depend on you in every way brings a transformative joy that is hard to describe. When I look at my grandchildren, I see both their father and their mother, and I also think I see my grandmother, Orpha!

I love painting and observing the human face, and we are such a complex, visual blend of many ancestors on each parental side that has gone before us!

I also found (among the photos I was sorting through) the baby announcement for my youngest son and many copies left of the photo we sent out. I had hand-calligraphed the original announcement and photo-copied it, as I did a lot of my work back then when I was first starting out with my art.

Back to the painting and my aunt and uncle’s celebration!

Binoculars.

I love it!

There are other very cute images of each of them from that long-ago day, but the inclusion of binoculars pretty much closes-the-deal (in my mind) for cuteness overload. As I try to think back on that day in the restaurant at this large gathering, I have a vague impression of my kids wandering around and a number of people having conversations with them about the binoculars!

Binoculars would have been something my uncle would have definitely appreciated and interacted with–both with his inclination toward nature and otherwise. Both he and my father served in WWII, and I have my father’s field binoculars from those years in a case, in a closet. My oldest son actually borrowed and used them when he was a young adult, for a time.

Were my aunt and uncles celebrities worthy of binocular-equipped child paparazzi???

Absolutely!

Children see with the “naked eye” what adults fail to see with glasses and binoculars, so very often.

My sons saw and knew of bedrocks in our family–elders, so-to-speak, along with their other grandparents–whose home, interest in them, touch, care and very presence engendered excitement. A visit to Boonsboro and to my aunt and uncle’s home and mountain-gardenous property served as a symbol, of sorts, to roots, permanence and stability.

I actually think that the idea of the homeplace these days is too easily abandoned or ignored. I do understand that our current culture seems to necessitate–or make people wrongfully crave–easy relocation and forms of upward mobility. But this comes with a high cost, in my opinion. Fifty or more years ago, I think most families stayed put when they acquired an adequate home.

I know that for me, returning over the years to the home I grew up in, even after my father died, triggered a number of memories both good and difficult, inconsequential and invaluable, that the current younger generations (including my sons) are deprived of experiencing through returning over the years to a homeplace. I do realize that this is complicated, and my young family also made several moves prior to 2005, for several reasons each time. I had hoped that the home we last shared together in Delaware would have been the place I grew old in and that my sons and their families would return to in future years, but in 2012 I made a decision that changed that possibility.

For Christmas 2011, I painted a picture of that home. It is the only other artwork I have signed “Mom” so far.

I wrap this up not only with a few more images, but I think of a Robert Frost poem that my cousin, Laura, has shared before in the context of family reflections (first, about our grandparent’s homeplace), and I believe it rightfully now holds other associations.

The Birthplace

Here further up the mountain slope Than there was every any hope, My father built, enclosed a spring, Strung chains of wall round everything, Subdued the growth of earth to grass, And brought our various lives to pass. A dozen girls and boys we were. The mountain seemed to like the stir, And made of us a little while- With always something in her smile. Today she wouldn’t know our name. (No girl’s, of course, has stayed the same.) The mountain pushed us off her knees. And now her lap is full of trees.

~ by Robert Frost

(And, Happy 30th Birthday, Dear One!)