My first and last painting
My seventh decade in life ended today as I became 70 and my eight decade began. My wife, Pat, put on an open house with a few friends invited to celebrate my birthday. The diversity of my friends old and young, women and men, black and white, poor and middle class, a friend I knew since grade school, my brother and friends I made the last few years. My best friend, my wife, Pat who is 100% Italian in heritage put on an Italian buffet for all.
After the party now that all is quiet and my 70 has come and gone I remember my good friend, my son Peter, who died a few years ago. My son Peter and I did not view life the same way but we could talk about it and have creative disagreements and discussions without any bitter arguing. Pat, my wife, would often take on conversations has arguments and fights and both Peter and I would insure her was not the case.
Peter was an artist and after his death I decided to take one course in art and paint a picture. After we were taught a few ways of using the brush and paint we were told to focus on a person, place or idea and paint it. All I could see was an abstract image of Peter and painted it. This was my first and probably last painting.
Peter was someone who understood the paradoxes of life, especially how death could bring life. He was haunted by demons since he was a young adult and the more we tried to fix him the worst it seemed he got. His last years were living with us and just as he was getting better he took his own life. Our therapist told us that frequently when a person gets better and sees his life that he lived with the terrible illness of brain disease, be it Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome or schizo-affective disorder as Peter was diagnosed, he or she takes their own life.
As my birthday came closer I thought of my younger sister by two years who lost her battle with cancer in 1995. Her birth was the same week as of mine. We were close as children and remained that way until we grew up and I left the house when I was 18 years old. When she was dying we became close again and her lost left with a lost.
The death of my son and sister and other family and friends leave me with me as a shadow of death but my new family of friends has come in my life with new blessings and hope. This eighth decade might be my last and will be full of deaths and new life. But as a friend mentioned today a birthday is day of death and a day of new life.
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