Drawing on Memories...

Felicia - May 96

I sketched Felicia the day she died. I wanted to set in my mind an image of her, one I would never forget. I had started a day or two before. We had called the vet to say it was time. Felicia’s coloring made her difficult to draw. How do you draw black, and still give it texture and depth? She was restless those last days so it was hard to get her to sit still. She wouldn't hold still long enough to draw her, but i wanted to try anyway. I started with the sketch of her facing left, got the outline done and most of her coloring’s outlined before she moved. But then I did something I don’t normally do. When she settled again, I started a second sketch on the same page, outlining her form and coloring again as quickly as I could. For the next hour or so, as she shifted from one position to the next I simply switched from one sketch to the other, the first blending into the second, until both and each were finished. In the end, the two sketches portray both sides of her face, and both sides of her personality that day, one brighter and more attentive and the other pained and lost in thought.

 I’ve always found that if I really want to look at something, I should draw it. In college, during an assignment to collect shells and identify them, I drew each of them. It gives you a different perspective. It forces you to really look at something. This is the only drawing of mine we have on display in the house. I had it framed for Edward in the year after her death and it hangs in the front hall. Some 21 years later, I’m still proud of it, and still amazed that it came out the way it did, in form and in composition, and most importantly, in spirit and likeness.  I still miss you, little one. Peace.

Read Edward's Poem and Essay about Felicia: 
  Poem: https://noddfa-imaginings-fiction.blogspot.com/2017/05/felicia.html
  Essay: https://noddfa-imaginings.blogspot.com/2017/05/beltane-2017-felicia.html

Four Years Ago

Four years ago I took the day off work to watch history unfold.  The man taking the oath of office was something our lauded founding fathers likely never imagined when they wrote and endorsed the words "all men are created equal".  There with one hand raised and the other on a bible, stood a man who was proof of that concept.   All men are created equal.

I didn't have to take the day off today.   Today, when that same man once again stood on the steps of the capital with his right hand raised to take the oath for a second term, I already had the day off.  Today was the official celebration of another man who place in history is equally as great.  Martin Luther King, jr.

King may have dreamed of that day four years ago.   I wonder if he thought that he would ever see that day.   He didn't.  But his son did.  And so did I.

I don't know if I'll live to see another black man elected to our highest office.  Or a Latino.  Or if I will live long enough to see a woman elected to the highest office in this land.

Dare I hope that we, as a nation, can evolve that far?

So I will sit on this day and ponder the possibilities as I sat on that day four years ago and hope that we can move on from our petty differences and see the dreams and hopes and potential we all share realized.

For all men and women.

For life.

For freedom.

For peace.

Yes, we can.