Ten years ago, I had my very first garage sale. I had just begun to "seriously" oil paint and one of the items I was selling was one of my first painting rejects. I was selling it with the thought that someone could salvage the expensive canvas and cover it with gesso and repaint it with something worthy of actually framing and hanging in a home or an office.
Two hours into the sale and only ten dollars richer, a woman with her 2-year-old son in a stroller passed by our sale and stopped when she saw the painting. She approached me, picked up the painting and asked me how much I wanted for it. I said "How does $5.00 sound?" She gasped and said she couldn't believe she was getting such a deal on an obvious original oil painting. I told her I wasn't really selling it for the artwork. Then she asked "Do you know who painted this?" Slightly embarrassed, I said "Umm, well, I did." She was blown away and insisted that I sign the painting. As I stumbled around looking for a brush and some oil paint, she told me that her son had a rare form of blood cancer and that she and her son would soon be moving to Canada where hopefully he could receive medical treatment that was not available here in the U.S. There was so much sadness in her voice, but she worked hard to keep a brave smile on her face. Happy to see my signature on the painting of the flowers, she gave me $5.00, held the painting up in the air, squinted her eyes and tilted her head one way, then the other, as if she were already at home, eyeballing the wall and where to hammer the nail, and said to me "This painting just makes me so happy. I will hang it in my kitchen where I can see it often." I told her it was my honor to sell her my very first painting. We exchanged telephone numbers and I asked her to keep in touch with me and let me know about her son, Alex. I watched her walk away, I wondered if I'd ever hear from her again. I didn't ...until last week.
It was just like any other day. I had come in from a day at work and was checking voice messages. As the message began I didn't recognize the voice. Even as she began to talk, still I could not place her voice. It wasn't until she said her son's name that I realized it was her. Here's what she had to say:
"Hi, Dianne. You may not remember me, but I am the lady that bought your painting of the flowers. I was looking at it today and thinking of you and just thought I would pick up the phone and call you. I was relieved to get your answering machine message and the confirmation that you had kept this number you gave me. Alex fought hard, Dianne. He truly did. He died three years ago. I'm doing OK. I really am. I often wonder where life has taken you, where you are, what you're doing. I wanted you to know that after all these years, I still have your beautiful painting of the flowers. I look at it every day, and after all this time, it still makes me so very happy. You don't have to call me back. I just wanted to say "thank you" for bringing happiness into my life daily. You'll never know how much your flowers have meant to me."
My mom once told me that she plants flowers not just for herself, but for others who pass by her home so that they, too, may enjoy their beauty.
This story is for Alex.