I try to be like water. Water goes to the humblest, lowest places and provides moisture. My place in the world is pinpoint small, but it goes down deep. The residents of this bleak, barren, and disjointed community have taught me that there can be profound wisdom, wonder, and love in a place of almost total despair. Our neighborhood may be nothing like the pristine hallways of a gallery, but we do art here. Our art holds our feelings, the feeling that we care deeply -- like water, like life.
Six weeks after my brother's death, the night came for Dad to die. The doctor came in telling us he could do nothing for him. And then, with a gasp, Dad took his last breath. The air was still and yet there was a Presence larger than life as Dad left his body. The Presence was palpable and real, yet unseen. I did not trust this, yet I knew it to be true. "It feels like a birth," my sisters said... Years later, I was sitting at my desk. Suddenly, I heard a voice, my father's voice. There was no one physically there. And yet, I heard my father speaking to me. "Bobby and I are together now. We are doing fine. We're with you more than you think."