Painting Caleb

Arianne captured Caleb beautifully in a painting she recently gave to me that she started 7 years ago.

(This is her tender post about the process of capturing Caleb)

Seven years ago my sister April brought home her third baby, Caleb. The doctors told her it was a miracle he made it to birth. There was nothing more they could do for him. She should take him home and let him pass away.

My heart ached for April. I had just gone through the emergency delivery of my first a few months before and had stepped into that place where one has to face the thought, My child might die.

I was blessed to step out of that place without any loss. I knew April would not be so fortunate.

As I wondered what I could do for April, the only thing logical seemed to paint Caleb. I had been oil painting to heal from the emotional trauma of my own experiences. I knew it would help me deal with what was happening to April's family.

I started to paint. I didn't have a single photo I was following. I just tried to paint the essence I'd felt from Caleb himself. I thought of how I might have to display it at his funeral. I was already thinking of Caleb as having passed away.

After dabbling here and there for a couple weeks, I realized the painting was not working out. I set it aside, along with my oil paints.

I haven't touched a brush or canvas in the seven years since.

The day after I got the news about Caleb's death, I was in the basement trying to find the cord for our internet connection. The workers who were repairing the area after our sewer back up and flood had made a mess of all our personal belongings. Everything was covered in dust. As luck would have it, somebody found that painting of Caleb and tossed it right on my computer chair.

I picked it up, wondering how it survived five moves. It wasn't so bad, I told myself. Why had I given up on it?

Then I realized why. I had been painting Caleb as if he had already passed. And he hadn't. There was nothing about such a painting that would feel right. Caleb was meant to live.

Now that my perspective had changed, I decided to pick up the painting and try again. It didn't matter if I was a wee bit rusty as a painter (okay rusted solid). I wanted to try.

My bottle of turpentine was almost empty. My paints had to be opened with pliers. They were dried and neglected. But I picked up the brushes and started to dabble a little here and there anyway.

I finished the painting and stepped back, wondering why it had come out the way it did.

This painting was no longer about death, it seemed. The depiction in the painting was of a fleeting moment that couldn't be distinguished as coming or going. Like the bubbles and balloons I wrote about here, it was hard to tell which direction the light in the painting was traveling.

Here's what I hope April and Dallan feel when I give it to them--that  the light Caleb brought is still here. It's all around us. It's falling  and rising with each act of love Caleb sent out into the world. The  ripple effect of each wink will travel forever outward.

At the very least I hope they feel that I love them. That I don't understand, but that I care.

I express myself--through writing, photography, baking, sewing, crocheting and, yes, sometimes painting--because it's how I make sense of the world. This was me making sense of Caleb.