The Portrait

I can still remember sitting for the portrait.
Nothing fancy…just an artist who was sketching in a store in Philadelphia.
Somehow my mother found out about it and decided to take advantage of the opportunity.
It was a day of getting dressed up with lunch to follow.

I remember that my dress was pink.
The artist told my mother she was going to make it blue.
It was so hard to sit still when I was five years old.
Somehow, I sat still long enough for her to get a preliminary sketch.
The portrait would be finished some time later.

The portrait arrived and was hung in a special place in our home.
After a while, I didn’t even notice it was there.
It was not very important in my five year old mind.

One warm afternoon, as my mother was hanging the clothes on the line to dry, a neighbor talked to her over the backyard fence.
My mother must have told her about the portrait and she asked if it had arrived.
My mother told her it did and went inside the house to get it…with me right by her side.

The day was so lovely, with a warm breeze.
The screen doors allowed the breeze to gently blow through the house.
We were not outside very long.
When we came back in, my mother put the portrait back on the wall.

We had some iced tea in the kitchen and a knock came to the front door.
It was our paper boy, and since it was Friday, he came to be paid.
My mother kept her purse in a tucked away place…easily accessible to her.
She went to get it to pay our paper boy.

Her purse was gone!

She looked in the kitchen, in the car, in her bedroom…any other place it could be.
It was nowhere to be found.

I still remember her wallet in my mind’s eye.
It was a paisley print…with a difficult clasp that opened the change compartment.
My little fingers could never open that without help.

She was so upset because her driver’s license was inside, her few credit cards, and pictures she kept in the small plastic insert.
She had to call the police.

I remember a very tall police officer coming to our house with his note pad and pen.
He asked her questions.
He didn’t seem too happy about where she chose to keep her purse.
He reminded her that because the doors were open, anyone could have looked in and saw her purse tucked away.

About a week later, a knock came to our front door.
My mother answered the door.
A young man, we had never seen before, was standing there with something in his hand.
She looked at him inquisitively…and he held out her purse.

He told her he was walking his dog and saw the purse on the side of the road.
He looked inside to see if there was any identification.

My mother checked inside her purse.
Everything seemed to be there.
She opened her wallet and saw her license, her few credit cards, the plastic insert of pictures.
It all seemed to be there…except for her money.
Her money was gone.

I wish I had known how much money was in her wallet the day it was stolen.
I was too young to ask…and she never said.
She never seemed to be unforgiving towards that person…whoever they were.

The portrait eventually was taken down as I got older.
I kept it however, and hung it in my girls’ room when they were young.
Recently, I got the portrait re-framed…as a legacy.

Not knowing who I looked like, it was very special for me to see my own face, as a child, in the faces of my children.

 

When I was a child, I talked like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror, then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. (1 Corinthians 13:11,12)

We stand on the shoulders of the ones that came before us.
I stood on shoulders that were not mine by blood…but mine nonetheless.
My children stand on shoulders, with a long history they can trace, on their father’s side.
A history they will continue…as God allows.

For me, that is what the portrait represents.
A bloodline…not only by heritage…but by Christ.
I can see my own face in my children.
More than that, I see Christ…who I pray we all resemble.

I am glad that the artist made my dress blue.
Pink…Blue…it doesn’t matter.
What does matter is the white robe we are given.
HIS robe of righteousness that is put on us when we trust in Jesus alone for our salvation.

For He has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of righteousness. (Isaiah 61:10)

I pray that one day my grandchildren, and my great-grandchildren, will look at that portrait and see something that they are a part of…a legacy of faith.

I may not know who I resembled on the outside.
I do know WHO I resemble on the inside.
That is enough…for me and for my children…and for all that will stand on our shoulders.

 

 

 

2 responses to “The Portrait”

1. I remember this portrait well from our childhood. I can still recall the voices of your mother and father, too….the house, the piano, your bedroom, the enclosed porch where we played my guitar, and the yard (I still have the picture of us in our uniforms). I love seeing this portrait again. It brings back such fond memories.

   Reply

   • Barb,
     Friends when we were girls…and sisters-in-law for over thirty years! Many good memories include YOU!
     You are loved!
     Gina

     Reply