Addiction is a word heard often in my family. I'm not going to sugar coat anything and try and make it happy and hunky-dory. Many of my family members have struggled with addictions to alcohol....some are still struggling and some, I'm happy to report, are learning how to overcome this painful disease.
For my Uncle, his road to recovery involves art therapy. My mom's side of the family is very artistic and creative but I never knew that my uncle also had this ability. When he first began his recovery, I spoke to him on the phone for the first time in years. I had just given birth to Eddie weeks before and remember crying as I told my Uncle about my beautiful son. I never thought that I would talk to my Uncle again since his addiction, as it often does in families, drove us far apart. We spoke for a long time....he told me about his recovery, we talked about Eddie and how having a child is an amazing experience. He has 4 girls and we talked about how c-sections have changed over the years. He shared with me some memories of when I was a baby. He told me about the paintings that he had started....angels and vibrant colors were an overall theme to everything he described to me.
I hold that conversation very close to my heart. He then told me something that broke my heart, just a little. "Don't be upset" he said, "if I don't remember this conversation later." The prolonged and abundant alcohol use had begun to effect his memory. Now that I think about it, I never have asked him if he remembers talking to me on the phone that day. To be honest, it doesn't really matter. A couple of weeks later, he came to Thanksgiving at my parent's house. We were able to make new memories. That was last year. This year, as you saw from previous posts, he joined us again.
Last year's Thanksgiving was, to be honest, a little uncomfortable. We all walked on egg shells, I think, careful not to disrupt the newfound peace in our family. This year, I am happy to say we were back to our crazy, loud and boisterous personalities. There was lots of laughter, picture taking and memories. My cousin, Darla, had a project that she had to complete for one of her classes at ISU. It was a spin off of the story about the man who traded a paper clip up for one thing, then another until he finally traded for a house. She had to do the same, and asked my Uncle to bring something cool that she could trade for. He brought a small pinecone, which he hand painted in various rainbow colors. It sounds silly, but it was so pretty. He told us that he would paint one color at a time, let it dry and paint the next color to ensure that the colors wouldn't bleed onto each other. This process took a lot of time and patience - a process which also brought my Uncle peace and clarity.
This one, small pinecone that sat on my mom's counter was the perfect visual representation of my Uncle's recovery. My mom ended up trading an antique in her china cabinet - a souvineer from the 1800's World Fair - for this pinecone. I told my Uncle that I wanted one, too, but instead of just a pinecone I wanted to tie some string on it and use it as a Christmas ornament. He kind of laughed me off and I figured that was that. I found out later that one of his daughters, Renee, also asked for a one. We all loved this little rainbow pinecone!
Today, as Eddie and I watched the mail lady come like we do every day, she put a box in our mailbox. I immediately put on my boots and ran out to the mailbox, expecting it to be a present from Frank that he accidently had sent to our house. In my head, I was debating if I should open it or let Frank know that it came. I decided on opening it. I'm a bad with presents like that :)
To my surprise, the box had a return address as my Uncle's. Right away, I knew that it was a pinecone. I was so excited! I ripped open the box and saw a pinecone at least double or even triple the size of my mom's rainbow one.
Bears colors - cute! He told me previously that getting the swirl thing to look right took a lot of concentration, since he only does one color at a time. My pinecone would look nothing close to a swirl this perfect, since I am far to impatient and would get sick of the whole one color at a time thing. Just thinking about it make my head spin. So there it was, my pinecone. One of my very own....it even has an eyehook on the top so that I can hang it on our Christmas tree! I started to call my mom right away. As the phone was ringing, I decided that I should look through the box for a note. As I pulled out another peice of newspaper, I uncovered the most beautiful pinecone. Seriously. It was gorgeous.
Gorgeous, right? Totally and completely perfect. I love it. I love it more than anything in the world. Who would have thought that one perfectly painted pinecone could bring tears to my eyes.
Thank you, Uncle Dave. We are all so, so proud of you.
ps - the big picture of the pinecone is cut off a little on the side. click on it to see it in all it's glory!
