I think Mom would have liked this one, although it is a far cry from the painting I gave her just a year ago for her 90th birthday. She would have been 91 today, if she hadn’t died. See today’s other post (Mom’s Birthday) for Dave’s (my younger brother) piano rendition of Happy Birthday.

Mom really liked ‘modern art’. She took me to a Hans Hoffmann show at the Museum of Modern Art in the 1960s. She loved his work and I assured her that I could do just as well. “Mommy, give me a paint brush and I can do that,” I said, according to her. She also said that I called his piece entitled Magnum Opus, ‘magnum ups’, or ‘magnum oops’. I wish I could confirm which one it was, but those days are over.  I miss not being able to check up on facts from my childhood that only my parents and I remembered.  Now, it is what I say it was, even if I’m wrong. This is insignificant in the scheme of things, but it means that the facts of my life could be turning into fiction even before my own demise.  Unsettling.

In keeping with the amorphousness of life on the far end, I offer the following watercolor sketch.

When Amoebas Attack
9″x12″ 140# Cold Pressed Watercolor Paper

Don’t know if Mom would have been crazy about the title, or even this post. She didn’t dwell. She lived more in the moment than I do. She did have an opinion about aging. She said, “Getting old stinks.”  I’m going to have to brace myself.