Picture

I put your picture away
Sat down and cried today
- Kid Rock & Sheryl Crow

When each of my daughters was in middle school, they had to do a report for art class about a famous artist. Laura told her teacher that her great-great-grandfather was a professional portrait artist and could she do her report on him? We still had some of his artwork in the family. The teacher agreed.

My dad was a little more hesitant. Laura could only take the pieces of art to school if I accompanied her, and if all classmates agreed to put all pencils, pens, and markers away - anything that could damage the artwork. We had a small landscape done in oil, a small portrait done of my grandfather when he was about four or five years old posed laying on the couch and propped up on one elbow, and then a large charcoal portrait of my grandfather as a young man. I also had a three-ring notebook that had prints of many of the large and even life-size portraits Paul Thomas had painted of people. Laura was going to do her presentation, and I would drive over to the middle school and meet her there with the art work.

So I left for work that morning with all the artwork carefully packed in my trunk and drove the four blocks to work. But I'm proud of my family history and wanted to share Paul's art with a few of my colleagues. So I brought them in to my school and showed the pieces to a few close friends. Just before it was time to meet Laura I left, artwork in hand, and went back to my car. I opened the trunk. And as I was placing the artwork in the trunk, the hood of the trunk dropped, creating a large spider-like crack in the glass on the charcoal portrait of my grandfather. I was horrified. It was a clear sunny day without a trace of wind. My trunk hood had never dropped life that before and never has since.

Laura did her presentation, and we apologized for the cracked glass. I told Laura later that we were going to replace the glass and just not mention to Grandpa what happened. The portrait didn't seem to be damaged and Grandpa, for all his worries about the students damaging the artwork, didn't need to be any the wiser. So when I got the replacement glass, and picked out the broken pieces, and then gently removed the charcoal portrait, I got the surprise of my life. Behind my grandfather's portrait was a matching portrait of my grandmother! Well now I had to tell my father. His response was, "Well I'll be darned! We knew there was a portrait of Mom. We just never knew what happened to it." The family thinks that when my grandparents divorced, my grandfather didn't have the heart to get rid of the drawing so he simply placed it behind his.

I thought about you for a long time
Can't seem to get you off my mind
I can't understand why we're living life this way
I found your picture today

I think about that day from time to time. How odd that my trunk hood dropped for no reason. How odd that the glass would shatter so completely but the portrait not be damaged in the slightest. Someone wanted me to find that picture. I don't know if it was my grandfather or grandmother or someone else. The bigger and more fascinating thing is that it happened. It gives you pause, doesn't it? My dad wanted my brother to have those portraits. My brother didn't want them. I asked for them so I could pass them on to Theresa, as she's the artist in the family now.