still life | TWO Spoiled Cats

First things first……..HAPPY MOTHER’S DAYto all Moms today – even if today isn’t observed where you are, we still think Moms are special EVERY day but today for sure.

To celebrate the day, I did just what I said I was gonna do in yesterday’s blog – gave Mom a surprise by hopping up on the bed this morning to tell her I love her. She “got” it !! But she also asked me if I’d mind if she borrowed my blog JUST FOR TODAY to tell a little about my Grandmother – her Mom.

Hi Sammy’s Friends! To celebrate Mother’s Day I thought I’d share a bit about Sammy’s Grandmother……first of all, here’s an old photo of her (my favorite one) which was taken around the time she married my Dad in 1946:

I remember as a little girl, lying on my parents’ bed watching my Mom get all dressed up to go out to some event or another with my Dad. He always looked spectacular in his Air Force uniform for the occasion but my Mom looked like a fairy princess. Watching her fix her hair and choose jewelry (after I’d gone through her jewelry box and picked out what I thought she should wear!) and the donning of some spectacularly gorgeous gown – it just turned my Mommy into a goddess. I thought she was the most beautiful lady in the world. She’d dab on some perfume (and put some on me too!) and I’d hold the babysitter’s hand as I watched them go off into the night together. I always thought she looked like she could float on a cloud.

The years went by…….many of them in fact………and eventually my Mom was on her own but beginning to show signs (which we all tried to ignore) of the ravages of Alzheimers. She had a bad fall in her apartment which led to after care in a rehab facility which really sped up her deterioration mentally and physically and she spent her last years needing full-time care in a nursing home. We kept her apartment for a long time – maybe hoping against hope she might return but of course she never did…….but in cleaning/clearing it out after she died in January, 2001, in a dark closet, under a pile of old linen, I found an old cardboard box. In the box was a lovely tea/coffee service. I’d never in all my life seen this china – all the years of moving when my Dad was in the service and packing/unpacking you would have thought I’d at least SEEN it – but none of us had. It was packed with very old newspaper – she’d had it forever……but where it came from nobody knew.

I now have it……..displayed in a china cabinet. Every time I walk by it I wonder about it…..and some years ago I decided to do an oil painting using some of the pieces. I set it up as a still life in my studio and while my “forte'” has always been landscapes, I gave the still life a whirl. It’s not my best work by far, but it’s special to ME. It’s right by my desk in my studio hanging in a spot where I can just turn my head to the right and see it – and think of my Mom – and STILL wonder just where that china came from…….and of course the title of the painting is “The Mystery China”.