One Artist’s Abstract Interpretation on Coping with Loss Under Night Fall

In direct contrast to the quiet, serene night, the telephone rang interrupting my sleep. I could not decipher whether it was my desire to call Olivia coming true, or if it was truly ringing, but after a few infrequent noises I forced myself out of my bed. I yelled at it on my way through the kitchen and Michael said it was rather early in the morning for a phone call. It was Never’s grandmother. She was distraught and started speaking before I said my sleepy hello.

Rosamund was Never’s eighty year old maternal grandmother. She was upset to wake me and immediately started speaking. She said that Never had locked himself in his mother’s paint studio upstairs and was refusing to come out. I agreed to come over even though Rosamund was not worried, she was just unable to relax knowing he was in there with the door locked. I got dressed and put on a heavy coat for the cool night, ready to travel across Manhattan at three o’clock in the morning.

When I arrived I was taken back by Rosamund’s old house. It was just like the homes the elderly live in with old furnishings, dust, knitted doilies and photos yellow and wrinkled around the edges. Just like going back in time. Rosamund and I walked to the studio where Olivia had painted. It is a room filled with beautiful bay windows. The windows are tall and cathedral shaped carrying brocade curtains timeless in their look and structure. Rosamund was very apologetic as we traveled down the hall and tapped lightly on the door.

Never surprised me when he answered the door so quickly. There he stood with black paint all over his shirt. He was surprised to see me. Never apologized. He said he did not mean to cause his Grandmother to be upset. We walked into the studio filled with Olivia’s paintings, unarranged and leaning against the walls, and were immediately met by Never’s Irish Setter, Hopper-Skipper. They had both been locked in the room and there on the easel was Never’s first serious artistic endeavor of his short life.

He’d used a rather large canvas and had done a basic childlike monochromatic essay on the color black. He proudly walked over to the painting and put his arm out, his paint stained fingers’ pointing at the rather unremarkable painting done obviously by a child. The painting was like a three year old child’s scribbling. Long back and forth strokes covered every inch of the canvas. It reminded me of a child who was trying to stay inside the lines. They jutted out all over the canvas, intersecting and crossing without rhyme, reason, care, or talent. I said, “You worked very hard on this didn’t you?” to open the conversation. Behind me, Rosamund gasped when she saw the messy painting.

I was insincere in my words, tired in my soul and I felt sorry for him. It made me useless as a good friend to Never because I just felt sick when I thought of Olivia being gone. I chose not to get mad at him for creating such a big mess, for not letting the dog out and for being neglectful of his grandparent’s slumber. But this night was different inside me. I felt a blindness of myself. It struck without warning as I bent down to look Never in the eye. I knew he had something to say about his experience with the canvas and I knew he had more than a black and white answer to this awkward deed. Somehow as I waited for his long awaited response: I felt changed inside.

As Never stood simple and youthful, green-eyed and bursting with ways to show us the beauty of a black infested painting, water seemed to splash all over his enthusiasm, as he solemnly said, “I wanted to make a painting of my mother, but I couldn’t, so instead I painted the night. I painted it by drawing the darkness. It was the only way I knew how to paint a picture of my mother. I started in the center to try and draw her hair,” he pointed to the outer-ridges of the black strokes. “That’s her hair,” he whispered.

We all were quiet as the painting grew slight and alarming in the way the strokes did have some blind, single-colored ruddiness to it that the radiance of his innocence seemed to pick up. Never continued, “This has never been seen and it grows in the night, that’s why I drew her standing in the night time.” He sadly pointed to an awkward place in the bottom center and said, “Those are her hands.”

The time that fell between his gaze meeting mine was heavy and the darkness through the windows seemed to double in size. I certainly did not believe that he had captured her true nature, but did believe that the true depth of his grieving emotions may never be known. At no time did he deny or alarm to the implications of the bombast of his painting or the fright that might overcome many an observer. It did not matter. What mattered was that he was proud of his painting and saw the beauty of his mother and this beautiful night. In a way, he was becoming an artist in his own right.

I walked part way home alone and Michael met me for the last of it. We went into a small café and ate a very early breakfast. Most of the restaurant’s early morning food was yet to be delivered and some was coming off the truck as we ate. I could see the creeping sun coming in through the kitchen door and grimaced as it lit up my scrambled eggs. Then my cell phone rang unexpectedly. When I peered at the telephone number I saw Rosamund’s name and my surprise went away.

It was a terrible moment that should not happen even once to anyone. For me it had happened twice. Rosamund was screaming and crying and unable to voice the worst of all the words in the English language. I got up and ran. Michael and I held each others’ hands as we ran the last few horrible blocks – back to Rosamund’s archaic home.