Reflections On My Soul For All Time

My life as an artist has had many twists and turns. It has not been so very different than my life as a Mother. There is a very fine line dividing the two. I have created/developed/nurtured my children's lives as I would an image on the computer, influencing their growth, creating the shadows and the nuances, working on the composition and form of their future. It has been an exploration for me, one that is fantastic and beautiful.

I was twenty-five years old when my oldest child was born. He was the first pregnancy that I carried to term. Having a newborn was not something I would have ever expected in my life. I had never taken care of a baby, perhaps held one or two, but I had no real relevant experience as a Mom. I had no teachers, my Mother had passed seven years before he was born, and my Mother-In-Law was not helpful. I chose to breast feed my little one, to take full advantage of my moments with this soul who had sprung from my being. As he grew, so did I. We learned together, he and I. When he was eight months old, his father and I separated. I flew to Arizona with my little fella, suitcase packed with little more than diapers and baby clothes.

The years sped by, and two more little lovelies, girls, were added to my own small canvass of life. They were loved as deeply and eternally as their brother. We were happy, these three and I, delighting in the sheer pleasure of daily life, discovering together the timelessness of love and caring. We lived in the same desert I had grown up in, and these three little creations whom my body had nourished and grown were able to experience the joy I did as a child. I taught them to respect the life that surrounded us, to protect that which could not protect itself. As time passed, I watched in wonder and amazement the beauty of the masterpieces each one had become.

They are grown and gone from home now, these three works of art. They have their own canvasses filled with babes of their own, and are handling the job of creation with skill and precision, helping to exquisitely form these new wonders I call Grandchildren. I rejoice, for the art that I helped to create on their unique palettes is beautiful, priceless, eternal, reflections on my soul for all time.