Pictures were stacked against the basement wall on our garage sale’s last day, and a framed portrait of me as a six-year-old pitched forward. There was lots of laughter and relief about this being the final moments of a 24-year purge, but the indifference as my portrait headed south shattered something deep inside me, even before the glass splintered. The garage sale and apathy over my broken portrait were my two most difficult moments during our downsizing (although my husband, older daughter, and niece, who were there then, had no clue). They probably don’t even remember that moment when we stood in the corner of the basement between the furnace and cabinets on that overcast day, the sun setting quickly while we separated what to pack with what to send on to the final Goodwill pile.
The picture is a chalk portrait of me that hung for decades in the suburban house where I grew up. My slow-motion observation of its downfall was as unsettling as my unrealistic notion of its permanence. It never hung in this home, where it barely survived its only outing. After my parents died, it made its way here before we sold their home where I grew up.
My reaction strikes me as incredibly naïve, what with chalk pastels perhaps the most fragile of an artist’s media. Created on art paper, not canvas, it’s easily torn and smeared when not preserved under glass, which is as delicate. A triple threat. All the chalk masterpieces my daughters and their friends created on the sidewalks and driveways of our past would wash away overnight, welcoming fresh starts every morning. I hadn’t connected the fleeting similarities before, but I must have known somewhere deep inside where that kind of knowledge becomes clear when a stark realization is imminent. The inverse of the “aha” moment, where we revel in the consequence of an unanticipated blessing.
A chill shot through my heart when the picture struck the cement, scattering slivers of glass. Nearly five decades after its creation, its vulnerabilities became mine. The fears and tears of my captured 6-year-old self lay in the glass shards surrounding me.
My mom bought the brown cotton dress with its pink baby-doll collar specifically for the occasion. I sat up straight, petite hands crossed over my lap and white, lace-trimmed socks and black, patent-leather shoes crossed at the ankles. For two days, I posed in the inside shopping mall while an artist captured the expression that defined me for decades.
The covered mall was revolutionary in the Midwest in the early 1960s. Anchored on one end by Carson Pirie Scott & Co. and the other by Sears Roebuck, those retailers encapsulated shoe and toy stores, boutiques, a food mall, and annual Easter Bunny and Santa Claus visits.
The portrait-sitting captures some of my first real memories. Details never change. When I would ask others who came to watch the artist render me, they repeatedly confirmed specific details I recalled. These weren’t placating neighbors; Shirley Stone was my mom, and she wouldn’t have friends like that. She preferred what she called straight shooters.
I sat still as a statue, believing if I moved I’d blur the picture, as if the artist were capturing a single image with a camera. Or worse, I’d anger the artist or disappoint my mom. I still dread the thought of letting someone down, even a stranger paid to recreate my likeness.
The artist sat on a stool behind a big easel where his art paper hung from a gigantic clasp. To his side on a small table were all shapes and sizes of chalks he’d blend with other broken bits of blues, beiges and browns onto his palette or sometimes on top of his hand to find the right shade. His eyes moved slowly from me to the easel to the different pastel pieces and back a million times. He rarely spoke but occasionally tapped a tan or coral chunk of chalk onto a practice pad as if it were a gavel, the artist-judge punctuating his expertise by floating magic dust into the air and onto his apron.
The ceiling towered above me; light from stores lining the mall’s perimeter slipped into the recessed area where we sat. Conversations hushed when shoppers exited Carson’s jewelry department, which led inside the mall; others paused when they turned a corner to come upon us. Neighbors who could see me anytime at home appeared at random, standing quietly while exchanging smiles and whispers with their friend, Shirley. My mom watched me from behind the artist, every part of her absorbing each moment as intently as she did every day we were together over a lifetime.
Standing or sitting, she held herself straight, shoulders back, creating a formidable presence despite her small frame. Each day she wore one of her pressed, sleeveless cotton floral dresses with the zipper hidden in the back. She placed a dab of Chanel No. 5 to each wrist, the scent now a restorative tonic whenever I near it. Everywhere we went, someone commented on how much I looked like her. I never saw the similarities, but they were recognized far too often to doubt. She was slender with hair cut short; I wonder now what I would have thought coming around the corner had I seen her through my parent eyes.
Once complete, my portrait ranked among the top tales told and retold with endless pride. For the longest time, I didn’t understand how or why that occasion gave her such pleasure, and I was mortified at its endless retelling. What I wouldn’t do now to hear her recount it one more time. Our late recognition of a mother’s love is one of few things I find fault with in the universe. It should be reversed; we should know innately to appreciate it fully from the beginning of our lives rather than later so we revel in those treasured moments delivered with unbridled praise by those moved solely by unconditional love. Can you imagine a better way to diminish adolescent insecurities, to build a confidence that too often holds youth back from everything to gain?
Now that she’s gone, and I’m even older than she was at the time, I cherish the fact my portrait always hung on a prominent wall in our family home. Whether I was above the walnut buffet in the living room or over the headboard in my parents’ bedroom, me forever frozen at 6 was as much a living member of our family as was my mom, dad, sister, brother, and the real me.
My mother had quite an assortment of artwork, each piece meaning something special to her. An acrylic Emmett Kelly Jr., the sad-faced hobo clown of Depression days, was as big as my portrait. We never shared a wall, only the same sense of melancholy that clearly captivated my mom. She would tell you she loved clowns, and she had a few shelves of them ― nice ones like Lladró and other quality porcelain and crystal figurines. Nothing garish, but enough to disturb my daughters who were young when my parents were still alive and already more than a generation away from circus clowns and the likes of Red Skelton.
I remember as distinctly as the portrait-sitting how my mom would call my older sister, brother, and me to the television whenever Emmett would slowly sweep away the spotlight, then fade into blackness. It still seems odd — the contradiction of a sad clown. After a few times, I was more mesmerized by her reaction, transfixed and always a silent tear slipping slowly down her cheek; neither of us yet aware of how much we drew from each other. Now I understand my mom had many layers I knew nothing about. She’d always been, as everyone would say, a woman to be reckoned with; and so it seemed — particularly Shirley — she wasn’t really an open book.
After my mom and dad passed away, while we had their house for sale, my mom’s best friend went inside (to reminisce reason enough). She was the neighbor with the spare key, just in case. She called afterward, concerned solely about my portrait still hanging over the headboard of my parents’ bed. She reminded me of how my mom and dad treasured it and thought perhaps I shouldn’t leave it there unattended.
My husband went to retrieve it. When he brought it into our home, I set it in our closet. Hanging it up was never once a consideration. The girls thought nothing of it, still too young to understand the infinite ways mothers display the depth of their love. Every one of their stories I told and retold with joy evoked from them the same horror I once felt.
Perhaps I was too fragile from losing my mom to find a wall to reveal my young vulnerability. But, unlike my daughters, I was at last becoming aware that her love simply couldn’t have been contained back then, even if she’d tried. I also realized that portrait meant everything to her and my dad, and little to nothing to anyone else, except for a former neighbor who recognized its fragility without my mom’s security. So for my girls and my heart, it remained unseen without thought of its safety. Set behind the “maybe-one-day” section of my closet, its location also protected me from a single image that summoned the magnitude of my mom gone.
Not until two decades later on a cloudy afternoon near sunset in a basement between the furnace and cabinets, where I experienced moments between panic and despair, did I recognize how powerful the connections are that link generations. In those years following endless adolescent humiliation and much anticipated distance ― to college, marriage, travel ― we’re blessed at last to grasp that it is the very same unconditional love from those who tormented us most that sustains us still through our toughest days.
Secure in that still sketchy recognition, I slowly and carefully swept up the slivers of glass. I shook the frame over the garbage can to make sure no shards remained. The frame had cracked so I carefully separated it from my chalk portrait backed only by a piece of thin cardboard. Then I broke the frame into smaller pieces to fit into the trash. Next, I loosely and tenderly rolled my six-year-old self up and hand-carried me to our new home. I laid my portrait atop a tall dresser for some time while what remained of all my children’s fondest memories found new spaces.
I was amused at the few instances when my niece noticed my portrait perched on the dresser and made a point to suggest I should take greater care of it. She’d grown older, now with a child of her own — the connections of another generation starting to strengthen.
Now my oldest daughter has a daughter, only a few months younger than I was when sitting for the portrait. Whenever we go out together, someone comments about how much my granddaughter resembles me. I don’t see it, and I’m unsure what my daughter feels about it. But hearing and rehearing it reminds me of the story of my 6-year-old self, told and retold.
Thus, without fanfare, a wide-eyed stare once again stoically holds court from a wall in the bedroom where my granddaughter plays; the image has been re-glazed and reframed to suspend our adolescent likeness. The stare still damp with tears long suppressed, and all that flows within the broad spectrum of adolescent naïveté and panic still swims in the blue pools.
Butat long last I can face the portrait, look at me, study me, smile. Even point me out to others while I remember with pride my mother’s pride. I’m whole again, in my home and in my heart.
