Monday, June 15, 2015

Completion



I just can't believe it.  She said "You look just like her".

Well, it's just about damn time...

My neighbor had stepped in to offer suggestions regarding the restoration of my mother's portrait. She is a portrait artist and I felt her expertise would send me in the right direction. I had discovered recent cracking in the seventy year old framed treasure, which hangs on a wall of my conservatory.

The relocation of it from the family room to the more private wing of the house was done on a whim several months ago. The portrait had been one of the collection of oils in the family room.  It was among dissimilar large originals, mostly landscape. But the pairing of it with an antique mahogany
desk was well proportioned and gave it prominence on the longest wall of the room.  Fifteen years residence in the same location was long enough.

I remember it all throughout my life; in my early years, hanging in the formal living room of my childhood home. It was commissioned by my grandmother.  My mother was twenty six.  The artist was very well known in the Green Bay area and that's all I remember except that the artist gave mother more exposed shoulder area than my grandmother would have preferred…

It's still radiant, the colors have not faded. She remains youthful with her red hair and bright green eyes.
There is no smile, however and that makes me wonder what her life was all about in 1947.

I suppose the excitement of newly married life and the move across the nation from Wisconsin to Washington was overwhelming for an only child of a single parent.  I can't know and I can't remember her sharing the details with me.

Her life sidestepped from bride to mother through a private adoption agency twice by the time she was 38. I don't know many of those details either.

As my brother and I grew up, we were introduced to relatives and eventually began to understand that a person's origins had nothing to do with the family tree.  Genealogy was certainly a factor, but there were both my name and my brothers name on the branch just below mom and dads so there was no arguing the point.

We had titles: daughter, son; sister, brother; granddaughter, grandson, cousin, etc. Eventually, we traveled to meet the "tribe" and that served many purposes; mostly solidifying  that we belonged right where we were.

It all changed when my parents passed.  The definitive moment being the funeral of my father.
The relatives did not come, excepting a second cousin.  A scattering of former neighbors and business associates were in attendance.  My father was the last surviving of the original four siblings. Mother had passed 15 years before.

After the grave side service, I sat alone on the front porch of my brother's house. The head of my family was dead. I was an orphan at age 49.

Change of mindset was almost instantaneous; almost freeing. I now belonged to that group of anonymous persons who could flow through time with no connection, no baggage, no labels. And so, that was me for most of the last decade.  I separated from the holiday card tradition and the birthday phone call group because those people were no longer welcome to my life.  It was nobody's business, where I was and what my children were doing.  I am still void of social media. Spontaneity is my friend and anonymity my calling card.

However…

Never having that biological name-tag can be overwhelming at times in a society which mandates group identity.No family reunions to bequeath to my children. They will have to research on their own if their future endeavors require the support of familial ties.

Strange that someone who has just met me (existing in that vast category of acquaintances) would sense unity between the ghost in the portrait and me. How is it that I could possibly resemble all the qualities which endeared my mother to me. My outer self is apparently a reflection of her inner soul.

Where I sit, I can look in the mirror, hung on the wall opposite her portrait, and realize that for a time, (thirty three years to be exact), I was hers. My identity sculpted and perfected within her heart ; for I was very much wanted.

The portrait is a visible clue as to my legacy.  I will search and find the one to restore it's fragile surface.
It will hang on the wall and keep me company and remind me that I am all I can be.  I completed her destiny and she is still completing mine. I had a wonderful beginning, the rest is up to me.