Nana’s Art

When I was in second grade my grandmother, Anne, Nana to me, went on a trip to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Although she traveled a lot at this time in her life I remember her trip to Brazil because she brought back a rock collection for me. I still remember the stones in their little pockets encased with thin sheets of plastic. I remember getting out the collection from my closet and spending long moments gazing at those rocks, one of which was an amethyst, my birthstone. I remember taking the collection to my second grade class to show my friends. More than showing off the rocks I was showing off my very cool grandmother…the one who lived in Orlando near Mickey Mouse and always flew in with honey roasted peanuts to give to me from her plane trip.

I remember waiting for her at the airport…waiting for those teeny bags of honey-roasted peanuts she would save for me, her only granddaughter.

She promised me that when I was 12 years old she would take me on a trip to anywhere in the world. So I would look at those rocks and dream. Where would I want to go when I was 12? I could never decide. Maybe Australia. Maybe Greece. Maybe Africa. Maybe Rio!
My twelfth birthday came and went and Nana never said anything about our trip. By then her health had begun to decline significantly. She moved to Cleveland just three years later to be close to her daughters. With the exception of doctor appointments and brief holiday trips to family homes, she was house bound at a relatively young age. I knew by then that our trip was never going to happen.

In my early to mid twenties, once a week I would stop by to have tea with my grandmother. She had traveled and experienced teatime all over the world and in some way I felt somehow connected to her previous adventures through those moments in that little kitchen.
I would knock and then begin to push open the door, calling out my greeting, letting myself in, not wanting her to have to get up to open the door for me. She was often sitting in a chair by the door where she spent hours each day reading, making her lists, and watching her shows. For a person who never left the house she sure did have a lot of lists! Lists of things she needed from the store. Lists of books she wanted to have delivered from the library. Lists of shows she wanted to be sure to watch on TV. Lists of things she wanted to talk to me about.

Our conversations at teatime would be about her books, her life, her memories, and her paintings. We always talked about books because she was always reading something new. Some of what she read was my writing. When she died, I found a folder by that chair that had only one thing in it: pieces I had written. Sometimes we would talk about quite scandalous things like the Harry Potter books she would loan me.
My grandmother, this tiny woman who had lived such a large life, now spent her last years in this tiny apartment and it was mostly filled with two things: her books and her paintings. I would often drive by when I was in town and wonder: “People have no idea who lives behind that door, the work she does inside those walls, the books she reads, and the stories she has to share.” Stories of being a pastor’s wife for more than twenty years, stories of living abroad, stories of making a life for yourself and becoming a regular at the opera, stories of wearing your hats.

Every week she would show me the various stages of her oil paintings. Some were in the rudimentary stages of pencil sketches on a canvas. Some remained ideas represented by clips of pictures from magazines. Some were at the stage of the first layer of paint, the under layer, waiting for her to etch in the finer details.
Each visit was like a private visit to an art gallery. She would take me from room to room to show me her latest works…both big and small. When I would comment on her work, she did not simply want an “Oh, I like that!” She wanted to know what I liked. She wanted me to be specific about subjects and color. My grandmother taught me how to compliment a person’s work.

My grandmother did not start painting until her early forties and she never stopped painting until she died. My home is now filled with her paintings. In my office every single painting is by her hands with the exception of one. People I meet and even clients who come in have stopped to tell me that they have one of my grandmother’s paintings in their home or know where one is. My face smiles and I miss her. I miss the cup of English breakfast with a simple place setting of cheese and crackers.
My grandmother was no Picasso. Her paintings will never be famous works of art, but I see her paintings every day and they speak to me. They tell me to do what I love and to keep doing it…to find an artistic outlet, a way of being a creator like the Creator, and to never stop. They remind me of her travels in her empty nest years, of her love for romance and adventure. Her art is part of her lasting testimony, her inheritance to her children’s children.

So, Nana, as it nears Thanksgiving, I am thinking of you. It is your birthday after all.
And, for the first time ever I realize that you did take me on my trip. In fact, you took me on more trips in your teeny apartment than one twelve-year-old girl could have ever asked for. With your stories, your pictures, and your books every visit inside your warm, dark home was an education…a trip abroad. I still drive by where you lived and miss you. The girls still talk about you. They remember how you would hide cookies in a container for them to find and how you brush their hair every time we visited. I always hear about how you would do it so much more gently than I ever do.

Just this morning Lillian, who was two when you died, was walking around our home and I heard her saying to herself: “Nana did every single one of these paintings.” On career day she went to school as an artist and I can’t help wondering if you had something to do with that choice. She wears one of your hats at least once a week.
On the morning that you died Eloise, then age four, got up and asked me why I had woken her up in the middle of the night to play with her hair. “I didn’t wake you up in the middle of the night, Eloise.” “Yes, you did. You patted my hair and said: ‘Shhh. Shhhh.’”

I might be foolish, but I like to think you stopped by to tell your sweet great-granddaughters goodbye.
Nana, you and your small frame, your love of life, your mistakes, your stories, you left a legacy. I think you taught me to be diligent. To never stop. To never stop living, to never stop working, to never stop reading, to never stop discussing, to never stop creating…even when your fingers and back fail you…even when life seems to have betrayed and failed you…because I know you saw more than your fair share of heartache.

I’ll never forget you trying to teach me to crochet. I would get it wrong and your graceful, slender fingers would unravel huge sections of my work. I would get so frustrated, even angry with you. I never did learn to crochet, but I did learn to keep at things important to me, to never be afraid to start something new no matter how old I am, and that when things aren’t going how I want them to…it is ok to unravel and begin again. There is no shame in that. Perfectionism is no excuse to not start and then start again. No matter how frustrating the unraveling might be, that’s just part of living and learning. It’s just part of the story.
And, Nana, YOU are part of my story. I’m so glad you are.

ACCEPT JESUS TODAY AND BECOME A CHILD OF GOD!
http://www.jesussaves.cc/index.php/english/prayer-of-salvation/

Written by Emily Stone of stonewritten.com