To anyone else besides my dad, mom, or sister, the painting that now hangs above my office door would probably carry little meaning. In fact, it's hard to tell at first glance (or, perhaps, even a second or third glance) what the painting is really about. While I do like the painting itself, I am much more content that it found its home in my office because it belonged to my great aunt who passed away this summer.
What's the reason it came into my possession and not someone else's? Well, it's not a long story...but it's not a short story either, so bear with me.
My great aunt, Marg (or, as she fondly dubbed herself, "Aunt Marg, the Great") lived for quite some time most recently in an assisted living facility in a small town in Michigan, and we would go to visit her whenever we were in town. It wasn't necessarily a quick car ride, but we usually made a day out of it, bringing her coffee and soup from Panera and then visiting other family friends out that way later in the evening.
Now, you had to be careful around Aunt Marg - if you mentioned offhand that you liked something she had, you might end up taking it home. So, when she made a big deal out of liking a painting that hung by the elevators on the fifth floor of her complex, I couldn't help but take note of it. And she certainly talked about the painting many times - I wish I could remember what it was that exactly stood out to her in it.
But that it mattered that much to her was enough for me. I decided I would figure out what this painting was called and how I could get a copy for her (because I surely couldn't steal it from the wall - not that anyone but Marg would have likely noticed). I must say that it's somewhat difficult to figure out a painting's title without the artist's name or some other concrete facts like when it was painted. I found myself typing into the Google search engine things like "woman in red dress dancing on the beach" and "umbrella" and "maid" until I found its title: "The Singing Butler." (See what Wikipedia has to say about it here.) The title really didn't make sense to me, but from that I was able to google it and find a decently priced poster version of it.
I'll never forget how the poster arrived - it came in a triangular tube, so it had some creases, which my dad couldn't help but point out to me. But I wasn't going to let that stop me or get me down - we flattened it out with some heavy books, and then we brought it to Aunt Marg on our next visit. She loved it, and her son and daughter-in-law ended up getting a nice frame for it, and it hung in her apartment until she passed away in June. I'm not sure if it was my dad or my great aunt who made note that I would get the artwork when she died, but this summer I was informed it was mine now.
So, when my dad came to Chicago to visit about a month or so ago, he brought it with him...and it sat on the floor of my office until today, when some of our wonderful maintenance staff hung it on the wall for me. I'm sure there will be plenty of people (students and adults, alike) who will be in and out of my office in the coming years and months who'll wonder why that painting means enough to me for it to hang above my door. And, if they ask, I can tell them about a wonderful woman who always looked at events and setbacks as "life's little adventures" and who definitely lived up to her name, "Aunt Marg, the Great."
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