Anniversary / Teach your children

My mom passed away a year ago today. There's no sadness. Only happy memories. She drifted away peacefully on a cloud of morphine.

When she was in the hospital and obviously not going to recover, my brother asked her, "Hey, ma, are you going to haunt me?"

"Not if you don't want me to."

That's how we rolled with her. And she with us. That's how it was done and we loved it.

Actually, now that I consider it, I *am* kind of sad that The Daughters will never know her. She was rock solid, that one.

* * *

On the afternoons when I don't have work, I try to sneak away to the museums. The crowds are thin, especially early in the morning. Can you look at masterworks too many times? Nay, I say. What is boring for many, never gets old for me.

One thing that was new to me—something I never saw on the weekends—were the roving classes. Groups of kids sit, surprisingly patient and well-behaved, are queried by the docents and asked for feedback. I look at their faces and as the talks progress and for some, you can see a fog lifting and a new clarity arise.

Sometimes, they're given an assignment. For instance, Giacometti originally intended the piece below to include a second figure. His arm is suppose to be draped around someone's shoulders. But time ran out on the commission and he was forced to deliver it incomplete. The students were asked to draw that second figure. What THEY thought it should look like. The statue is, basically, a stick figure, so it doesn't take a lot of artistic dexterity to draw it.


I try to get The Daughters into the museums a couple time a year, but it's tough. I do what I can.