A memory for an old friend

[peeplj]

Dedicated to one of my Chiffy friends that I have known for so many years.

Sharing a memory--it might seem an odd time, but you don't always get to pick your times when these kinds of memories hit.

Just surfing around, I came across a photo of this crazy huge art set--looks like maybe 500 pieces or so, from checking out amazon, probably would cost at least a couple of hundred....and I thought about the art set I had when I was a child.

It was a lovely art set. And I don't mean it was a lovely 12-piece art set or some watercolor pans like poor kids usually get...this thing was just huge. Going by memory, I think it was a 325-piece...it had this wooden carrying case with a handle like a briefcase. At the time it was just about bigger than me. I couldn't actually lift it by myself.

My mom and her friend across the street, Thelma Rigney, and probably my brothers and my sister, all chipped in. My brother David was an artist and I had always loved to watch him paint. And during that long dark winter of my first grade year, I was very very ill. The infection came back every two weeks no matter what the doc did--and I think about the recurring leg infections that were to come years and years later and I can't help but shudder. I was drastically underweight, could barely eat, couldn't keep the medicine down anymore, and my temp had soared above 105 on at least two occasions which I remember because I had hallucinated so vividly.

So well after Christmas had come and gone, on a day in a dark February when I had pretty much lost all hope that life was ever going to be anything but shot needles and nasty medicine and puking--they gave me this art set. Just out of no where. With no restrictions, and all the paper I wanted, and a big stack of hard canvases to paint on. "It's yours! Take it, play with it, have fun with it, make beautiful things," my mom said. She said, "I love you."

I think maybe she was afraid it was going to be my last gift.

It wasn't. I pulled through. They used a kind of penicillin to finally kill it--and I'm allergic to penicillin and they knew it, but they did it anyway, because they had run out of all other options. And it worked and I lived, and that summer they took my tonsils out and though I've had respiratory diseases from time to time since, I've never been sick like I was sick that year. And I started gaining weight...and didn't stop...but it's STILL better than anything from that long, bad year.

Except for my really cool art set. Looking back, I think that was maybe just about the best thing ever.

I'm sad to say I haven't thought about that art set for years---I try not to think about that long winter. It was hellish and I was young enough that I didn't always understand that the people that seemed to be hurting me were actually trying to help me. But out of the deadly darkness, the memory of that art set, and of my poor mom doing everything she could to try to give me just one more happy day--that memory shines like a star. It shines so bright that it makes my eyes water.

I have a very good friend whose husband is dying. My friend, this memory is my gift to you. Heart, be still--hold peace.

[trill]

Very moving.

It's funny what we remember, and when.

trill