Lonely Paintings

I can't mention the names of the people in these kinds of stories.  They deserve their privacy.  Besides, the point is not who they are but what they are and how they lived, at least in my stories.

She'd grown accustomed to living in the room beside her husband in the skilled nursing facility.  Both struggled with daily tasks in their ninetieth decade but wanted little more than to be together.  They'd visit each other's room, watch television, read what's left of our newspaper, and talk with the sitter.  After seventy-five years together, few words had to pass between them to communicate a lifetime of experience.

He died quietly while I was visiting my family.  When I got back in the building, I could tell something was wrong,  Days later, he was gone, but his room was the same.  The bed was made, and everything was in order, but he wasn't there.  With the lights out, you'd think he was napping.  

In his room, there were three or four large paintings and three or four more in his wife's room.  I knew something about him that nobody else in the building knew.  In his younger days, he was a member of the Jackson Watercolor Society, now the Mississippi Water Society.  I thought I recognized the paintings as his own, but they might also be by his master, John Gaddis.  I asked his nurse to quietly check the signatures for me.  They were his.

Watercolorists always seemed a bit of magic to me.  I knew several great ones, including Jackie Meena, who lived across the street.  I was allowed to take drawing from the daughter of Mildred and Carl Wolfe because they taught at Millsaps.  I was allowed to take oil from the daughter of Carter O'Ferrall, who was Grandaddy's best friend, and one of the kindest men I had ever met.  

Make no mistake about it, though; Art was for housewives and weirdos.  As much as I admired the work of Walter Anderson, it's no mystery which camp he fell into.  I was meant for greater things.  I had no other choice.  

"You could be anything you want, Buddy.  If only you'd settle down and study."
"I'm trying.  I promise."
"You could be a doctor if you wanted to.  You're really smart.  Wouldn't you want to do that?"
"I guess."
"How about you spend less time with those comic books and monster movies and try harder at math?"
"Ok, I'll try."

Oil paint, and acrylic, and pencil drawings, you could kind of control those.  They would do what you told them for the most part.  Watercolor was different.  You laid out an opportunity for it and did your best to guide the shapes on your page.  I would watch Mrs. Meena work a few times.  She'd move her brush across the paper like she was planting seeds that grew in the fibers of the expensive art paper she got downtown.  There was no way I could do that.  Not ever.  I stuck with oil and drawing for a while but gave them up because everybody knew life called me for other things.  At least, that's what I was told.

For me, landing in a skilled nursing facility was almost like I died and was born again.  All the shackles that held me down wore away, and I could remake myself according to what I really was.  A bulletin outside the community room said, "Water Color Class-Hope Carr."  I thought, "what's the worst that can happen?  If it's horrible, I don't really know the other people in the class, so it won't be too embarrassing."  Now, I'm making five or six new paintings a week.  I'm not good at watercolor yet, but I'm not afraid of it anymore, and my lifelong admiration of those who were good at it helps guide and inspire me.

I go by the room of my neighbor who lost her husband, pretending to be on an errand but really just checking on her.  After so many years together, being apart must feel like a great empty spot for her.  Her husband was in high school with my mother and father.  When I would see his father, he'd ask Daddy, "have you seen my boy?"  Daddy would say he had.  They were on boards together and had many common friends.  

I was kind of like his wife; he'd always been there--now he's gone.  Sometimes she'd go into his room and turn the light on to see if he was napping, then remember, after more than seventy years, he's not there anymore.  She'd pause and let the thought sink in, then turn the light off and go back to her room alone.  The unfairness of her moment strikes me like a cold wind.  You spend decades building a life with someone, then one day, there's a hole in your life where they used to be, and nothing will fill it.  

I suppose it won't be long before they pack up the things in his room and take them away, leaving her even more alone.  I hope his paintings go to someone special.  They weren't easily made, and there won't be any more of them.  I'm glad I got to be near him in the last days.  It's good to have somebody who knows what you were but still appreciates what you are now.  I don't know that I'll ever be as good a painter as he was.  I've had some great teachers but never much confidence.  I'm free now, though.  Anything can happen.  His paintings transcend him.  Art is like that.