A Dear Departed Friend

"Sunday Morning"   24" X 18"   Watercolor

This is a painting of my cherished friend, Diane.  Sadly, she died at the age of 43.  It was much too early an age to lose such a special friend.  We had so much in common.  We both have/had chronic hereditary illnesses, although it was not the same illness for each of us.  Diane watched her mother suffer and die from her illness while she was still a child, and I as a young mother watched my father suffer and die from the illness I inherited from him.  This made for a very special bond between Diane and I.

On a brighter note before we knew we were ill we worked together for several years when we were young single women just out of high school.  We certainly had lots of fun doing it, too.  Then, as newly married women we commuted daily together in her old 1958 chevy to that same job and lived, one above the other, with our young husbands in the same apartment complex.  Many a times we had to stop and refill her radiator on the way to work, but you can bet we had lots of laughs on those drives.  We continued on through our 20s and 30s together, having sons the same age and sharing each other's joys and sorrows.  I guess you could say we grew up together.

I still have this painting and we often hang it in our home.  It's one of my husband's favorites.  I like to think of it as a reminder of her in the good days, before our illnesses took over our lives and our bodies.

The Lace Tablecloth   20" X 15"   Watercolor

The painting above is one I gave to Diane as a "just because you're you" gift back in those good days that I spoke of earlier in this post.