"Saddened as I am by loss, my heart lifts in gratitude for the richness Lueza has brought to my life"
This is a quote from Daily Meditations for Working Through Grief by Martha Whitmore Hickman. She came to this work after losing her daughter in a riding accident many years ago. I ripped out the piece of paper and added it to my collage on a wooden shingle. A laminated card of the Virgin Mary. Lueza loved Catholic prayers for some reason. Catholic prayers and holy water from a Russian spring that a friend had brought us. I'm an agnostic in search of deep ritual. My closet is filled with rosaries and buddhas. Small religious medals that I found in a California Mission town antique store. An image of the Virgin of Guadalupe on a piece of tin. I think I'm making icons to Lueza now. It's peaceful. This photograph of her was taken when she woke up from her tracheotomy. Calm and happy to see us. Breathing freely for the first time in months.
Her Pulmonologist was impressed. He told stories about her.
I've become my own art therapist.
