A few months before my father died, I completed a painting titled So Hard to Say Goodbye. Twenty-two years later, he still haunts my work. In the last two years of his life, he too had a hard time saying goodbye.
Like a battered boxer knocked down and counted out, he kept holding on. People commented on his “grievous quality of life” after a stroke narrowed his world, depriving him of the ability to speak or to swallow. He could never eat or drink again, and he was left so weakened that he could barely move. Yet I selfishly cherished those last two years.
After he had lost the power to voice his needs and desires, I became fascinated with the words he wrote on a notepad in a spidery, shaky hand, scribbling all over the page as if the ruled lines that he had always lived by were finally flung away, strange characters landing aimlessly on the page...
To read more go to:
http://womensvoicesforchange.org/fathers-day-words-words-words.htm
No comments:
Post a Comment