Picture This

Cutting pictures from magazines seemed like a ridiculous thing for a middle-aged woman to do. I was in a
bereavement class, for heaven’s sake—I didn’t sign up for arts and crafts. I needed to learn to breathe again, to navigate the world without my mother’s unconditional love.

“We’re making collages,” the counselor said. “They’ll represent the person you’ve lost. It’ll give us a little snapshot of who they were.”

I scowled as I pulled a magazine toward me and began sifting through the pages in search of something that reminded me of my mother. Cake! Ice cream! Flowers! Bright colors! My attitude started to shift and I cut out words like “family,” “together” and “road trip.” With focused attention and a glue stick, I pasted the pieces, overlapping their edges, onto a piece of construction paper.

I attached a ribbon, so it would hang on a doorknob, and then held it up like a child at show-and-tell. I introduced the others in the group to my mother, an adventurous woman who loved her family, food and brightly colored flowers.

What seemed ridiculous at first turned into something quite cathartic. It was like seeing my mother from the inside out, and what a lovely picture it was.