| Any comments, suggestions or questions can be directed to the author. Thank you for taking the time to read and I hope you found something that you could enjoy. Disclaimer: I do not own anything in relation to C.S.I., Alliance Atlantic, CBS, William Petersen, Jorja Fox or any other characters contained herein... I just like playing with them now and then while stretching my writing muscles. And if you think there's any money to be gained by suing me, you're in for a horrible disappointment. |
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| LIKE IT WAS YESTERDAY |
| My Other Best Friend |
| Outside of my mother and my wife, there has only ever been one other woman to understand the craziness that is me. My mother worried about me a lot. I wasn't a healthy kid, and that was part of it, but I also struggled to fit in with our over-achieving, highly academic family. I wasn't terribly outgoing, I wasn't athletic, and I sure as hell wasn't a genius. I've always considered myself to be reasonably intelligent, but when you live in a family of people whose average IQ is over 150, that just doesn't ever feel like enough. And while I fought to find my place in that hierarchy, Momma struggled to make things right for me. This often led to us butting heads, no matter how much she tried not to let it. That's where Aunt Sara came in. Aunt Sara seemed to connect with me pretty early on, which is strange, since she's one of the ones tipping the IQ scales up there around the top. I guess because she had to struggle in a similar situation growing up, being the odd one out in the children's home, we were able to relate to each other. Of course, it helped that we also seemed to share the same morbid and off-beat sense of humor. I love using Aunt Sara as a subject in my art. Her high forehead, the shape of her lips, the way her hair catches the light, and the tilt of her head; these were all fantastic to capture in sketches and paintings. But it was also because Aunt Sara knew art, and could pick out the little things I was doing with each piece that I loved to use her as a subject. I did this one for my mother. Over the years, I began to realize that she was a lot more than the woman married to my uncle for my mother. In a lot of ways, Aunt Sara was more like my mother's big sister and closest friend. She and Pop were best friends, but Aunt Sara ran a very close second. Momma said she needed a good picture of Aunt Sara to put in her office one day, so we started going through all the stuff that I had on the computer. When we came to that photo, Mom stopped instantly. She pointed to it and said, "That one... It really shows that quiet reverence she has when she's solving a problem. I've always loved that look she gets when she's figuring something out." Our eye for personality traits is something else my mother and I share. We see things in others that no one else can; Aunt Cath's vulnerability, Uncle Gil's hope, Max's wildness, Momma's strength and grace, the true emotions of parenthood, and all the good and the bad thrown together that makes up the people we love. That's why seeing this wall in my mother's office is always such a moving experience for me. Because she sees in me, all of the things I see in others, and she sees all of the things I see, through my eyes. |
