Mother's Day message

Was Mary’s giant painting something only a mother could love?

Mary came along first and changed our lives, upending our fast and hip young steady state to usher in a decade of diapers and burp cloths, car seats and strollers. It was somehow exhausting and exhilarating at the same time!

Because Mary was the first of our three children, every Mother’s Day and Father’s Day my wife and I reflect on what a profound difference Mary made in our lives. We are thankful for the warm hugs, curious questions and silly comments, hundreds of Peanuts holiday specials watched together and the wide circle of other parents and kids we met and befriended over the years.

We’re even thankful for the Cheerios in the couch cushions, the Goldfish all over the car (and I do mean all over) and the many sleep-deprived nights and days that went along with raising youngsters. We’re grateful for the many school art projects, most of them dearly and briefly loved and now long forgotten except for a few tucked away in drawers forever.

Then there are the paintings!

As a teenager, Mary attended high school along with other youths on the autism spectrum. The holidays all brought interesting art projects including the usual turkeys at Thanksgiving, wreaths at Christmas and hearts at Valentines.

One year just before Mother’s Day, Mary came home with a stack of paintings. These weren’t the usual paint brushed onto a piece of paper or card stock, but actual 16x20 inch canvases. And there were four of them!

It was clearly an artistic effort that Mary made, and at least three of them were incredible!

Painting 1: red with a large “L O V E” written in black capital letters.

Painting 2: red with a large “M O M” written in black capital letters. (Or “W O W” at times, when our mischievous sons would come along and flip the painting upside down and see how long it took for any of us to notice!)

Painting 3: A white background with three flowers on each side and two hearts on the bottom. The middle of the painting includes Mary’s description of her mother, the words “Helpful, talent, best, friend, Mom, funny, kind, special and giving.” There’s also “Grut’s” but I don’t think that has anything to do with Guardians of the Galaxy, probably it is supposed to say Great or Greatest. When asked that day Mary did know or didn’t remember.

Then there is Painting 4. What to make of Painting 4?

Well, it has a nice green background. And we do know there are 23 individual pink, red and lavender flowers placed thoughtfully across the canvas. It appears to be a field of daisies, or perhaps roses.

It’s the message that bewilders us to this day! Painted amidst a sea of flowers are the words: “If Mothers were flowers” and then that’s it. There are no other words!

It looks like Mary ran out of time before she finished. Or maybe she didn’t want to paint any words over flowers and simply ran out of room. We know pop singer Taylor Swift had a blank space for a name, but perhaps Mary didn’t have a large enough blank space to finish her ode to mom?

Of course, we asked Mary what the rest of the painting would say. If Mothers were flowers, what would they be? Beautiful? Sure. Pleasing? Definitely. Glorious? Of course. Lovely? Duh.

Mary didn’t know the answer that day, and she didn’t suddenly remember after all these years. Our best guess is that Mary completed the “required” portion of the assignment and was supposed to fill in her own final words and just didn’t realize it.

All art is open to interpretation, that’s why many paintings are so compelling. Mary’s Painting 4 is something we may never really interpret correctly, but maybe there’s beauty in that as well.

The paintings are too big to stick in a drawer somewhere, so Mary keeps them in the basement on top of the plastic totes that contain all the other holiday decorations. Each May 1, Mary lugs the paintings upstairs and hangs them on our dining room wall where they stay until June 1.

The paintings are bright and lovely, but still the question remains.

If mothers were flowers, what would they be?

And a belated Happy Mother’s Day to all mothers everywhere!

Life with Mary is published every Tuesday. Feel free to subscribe and to share the link with friends.