Remembering My Sister
Celebrating with Janet on her 81st birthday.
Tasha, the caregiver at the hospice facility, asked, “Your sister was an artist?”
I said, “She was very well recognized back in her day. She still has paintings hanging in all the Florida Neiman Marcus stores.”
I showed her the picture of Janet in her heyday.
She said, “Did she always paint such big paintings?”
“Yes, she did.”
When we ended our conversation, I remembered how talented Janet was as an artist. She told me several times, while she was here in Atlanta, how she painted.
She said, “I never had a plan. I would walk up to the canvas and paint what I painted. I don’t know where it came from. There was something in me that needed to be expressed and it came out through my brush on to the canvas. That’s how it worked. It was such a wonderful feeling to paint. It freed me.”
This thought came to me and made me cry. Not from guilt but from joy. She found something in life we all want. We want to find a way to express ourselves. Some of us do it by creating companies. Others through the friendships we make and maintain. And still others by marrying wonderful people and creating beautiful families.
Each of these, in my mind, is from God’s hand. He created each of us uniquely and for a purpose. And when we express ourselves through that unique gift and purpose, we are making the world more beautiful. And we get to enjoy the fulfillment that comes with this purpose. God is good.
Janet created over 400 paintings.
They are all over Florida and all over our houses, from Miami to Atlanta to NY to London. Each of these is evidence of her self-expression. It is her gift from God and her gift to each of us.
I loved my sister through thick and thin. And while lying in hospice in a moment of lucidity, she looked me in the eye as I stood at her bedside and whispered the words, “I love you.” I’ll never forget her eyes and the way she spoke those words.
There is a lot of water that has flowed under the bridge of life for all of us. Janet wanted friends and family. And she wanted to be alone and independent. The difficulty for her was living with this tension. It was a lifelong struggle. Life was hard for her.
If each of you stood at her bedside in that hospice facility just like I did, I believe she would hold your hand and tell you, “I love you.” In the midst of all the relational chaos, she really felt this way. She never felt she deserved love, so it was difficult for her to share it.
My prayer is in death, Janet finally came to realize how much God loved her. And I pray she will know that love for eternity.