(from an interview with the artist prior to the December 2007 film shoot)
"November, hmm. I used to love that time of the year, especially the month of November. And Thanksgiving. Simba? Yes. It all changed after that. (Artist paused and the Producer and his assistant were quiet). Yes, of course you want to talk about him. Simba. He's probably the most important part of the story. When and why he became part of my life. The timing of it. It was crucial. In so many ways. And then what happened. How it impacted me. All of it really . . . (pause) I guess I can honestly say that if it weren't for Sim, I would not be alive today, and then none of these paintings would have ever existed." https://www.instagram.com/reel/Cx4GmV0PGYM/
". . .if it weren't for Sim, I would not be alive today and none of these paintings would have ever existed."
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SiBu AROUND THIS TABLE
[Pinks and blues . . . .. I never had children, even though I really wanted them. But somehow or other it was all okay. Somehow or other . . ..]
(Malibu, Christmas 2005 - 2008) I have what used to be a rather plain forty-two inch round table that sits in my very small one-room apartment inches from where I lay my head at night. It used to look just like any other table. There was nothing unusual about it, and if you were in a showroom full of tables, you no doubt would walk right past it and not even notice it was there. It blended completely and without any effort whatsoever into the background of other nondescript functional tables . . .a light beige top with two legs supporting it. There really is no room for it here next to where I close my eyes at night, it belongs in storage along with all the rest of my things, but it wasn't yet “complete" when I returned to L.A. There was something I still needed to do to make it whole. The writing around the edges. Memories I do not want to lose. So it is here with me. I need to get it out of here, out of the fire zone, to someplace safe -- but for some reason i just haven't been able to do that yet. I had it with me when I moved here from back East, one pretty non-descript table . . . two legs holding up the top....
(Before 2004) Simba and Buster used to play around the base, underneath its umbrella-like top. The table can be extended and a third piece of wood, an extension, added to the two. This is an excellent feature for entertaining which I used on occasion, but more often it was used to extend my work space at home where I spent many evenings with my boys, just the three of us together, me writing or painting and those silly goofballs playing that game, around this very table! Often on these nights after I finished nine or maybe twelve hours straight of working on a piece, I'd rent a movie, pop it into the video player on top of the TV, and sit down on the couch across the living room to enjoy my dinner. Simba and Buster would curl up on either side of me, and I'd rub their ears or bellies and comment when appropriate on all the on-screen action. I loved to see the ‘Bad Guys’ get caught and being held to account and I’d vehemently root against them whenever they appeared on screen. My two boys were content to lie there and if I stopped rubbing Simba's belly after he had become particularly comfortable, he'd take his nose and reach for my hand and shove it firmly until the belly-rubbing action resumed. Then he'd stop pushing my hand with his nose. Sometimes I'd stop, to see how long it would take him to "tell me" -- "Hey! Keep rubbing!" Well!, . . . it didn't take very long at all!
Sometimes Simba would get hungry and he'd get up and trot over to the kitchen entryway. He'd turn to look at me to see if I was paying him any attention. I was. Once sure that I was watching, he'd face a row of cabinets and make a motion with his head in which his nose dipped slightly then pushed upwards in the general direction of the kitchen. Then he'd turn to face me full on, catching my eyes, then turn and repeat the gesture.
“Hungry Sim?" I'd ask rhetorically and wait to see what he'd do next. "What do you want? Show me!" He'd take several quick steps in my direction then turn and run toward the kitchen, now fully animated in anticipation that I was paying attention, and, likely, going to take action in response to his request. "Show me!" I repeated. And he ran towards the one cabinet in which I stored the three-tin popcorn -- buttered, cheddar cheese and caramel. The cheddar cheese was his perennial favorite. He pushed his nose against the wood cabinet door then turned to me exasperated as if to say, "IN HERE! IN HERE!" and I could feel the excitement rising within him as his step and movements quickened in a growing fury of excitement. "What do you want?" I asked, feigning confusion as if I needed some directions spelled out more clearly. He barked just once in that high pitched voice, a voice far different from any of his "other voices," as if to punctuate his sentence and explain it more fully to me, poor human with limited comprehension of dog, a language so simple any idiot ought to be able to learn it, and he pushed his nose two or three times up against the cabinet door. "IN HERE! IN HERE!" I took out the huge tin of three types of popcorn and headed back to the couch. He looked eagerly as I opened the tin trying to peer over the top and inside the can. Buster who loved food perhaps more than he loved me and Simmy, more than anything else in the world in fact, also perked up. Buster was far more vocal when it came to anything concerning food. A high pitched "Woof!" Translation 'here I am. I'm hungry too!' "Woof" 'Here I am, in case you didn't hear me the first time!' "Woof!" 'I love cheddar cheese popcorn.!' "Woof!" 'It's my favorite!' I took out a handful of cheddar cheese popcorn and threw one up in the air in Simba's direction. SNAP! GOT IT! Then I threw one toward Buster. SNAP! He licked his lips smacking them together. His upper lip got caught over his teeth and he stood there staring at me with that silly and expectant expression, his deep brown eyes alert and ever-watchful. Another one for Simmy. SNAP! GOT IT! His mouth made a particular noise as he caught the popcorn and resumed the position for the next piece. There were many. Sometimes Buster couldn't wait his turn and tried to grab Simmy's popcorn, but Simmy was too quick and never missed a beat, even when I challenged him by throwing the piece higher into the air or in a slightly different direction. This was just one of our silly little games.
Often Simba would get bored with a two-hour long film and after he'd had enough massage to satisfy his needs, he'd get up and wander around my apartment looking for some other form of entertainment. He'd return with one of Buster's toys. Buster had several toys that Sim really loved a lot. One of them was a small stuffed pink teddy bear, which always made me laugh to see it in Buster's mouth -- so uncharacteristically Buster -- my strong and self-assured one, a retired member of the United States Marine Corps. Then there was a larger brown teddy bear which over the years had lost his shapeliness to more than one tug-o-war between the two soft muzzles of good friends. There was a small pink dog with a blue head and yellow eyes whose head was sewn on backwards which I didn't notice for some time after bringing him home but when I did I found him rather frightening. It didn't seem to bother either of my boys. There was an adorable dog with a white head and green ears stitched in red; his body, legs and tail long gone following one too many tugs. And that funny purple small stuffed bear with no stuffing left inside of him and a grey stuffed animal missing not just his stuffing but his head too. His body, legs and tail still well-preserved and intact. A large white stuffed ball with happy pink and purple markings, which I recall Buster lying in a corner one day in his twilight years when more active games were of declining interest to him and systematically dismembering it one mouthful of soft white cotton stuffing at a time. A deep purple stuffed faux bone and an assortment of multi-colored braided and partly shredded ropes attached to an assortment of once faces, heads, feet and tails completed the line-up.
Simba returned with one of these toys in his mouth, marched up to Buster and shook it in his face. Buster turned and made a half-hearted attempt to wrest it from Simba's mouth but as soon as Buster had his mouth upon what was his toy, Simba would yank it right back out of Buster’s mouth and take a step back. Buster would often ignore Simmy at this point and go back to doing whatever it was he was doing, not uncommonly it meant just resting his head back upon the couch - or my lap- and observing Simba watchfully for his next move. Can you believe this? How annoying can you get? That's my toy and he'd better drop it - soon! Simba always had a next move. Though it seemed to me when I first started to observe these games that Simmy was unable to engage Buster right off, he would move in yet again, presenting Buster's own toy to him, and for special effect he'd shake his head with the toy in his mouth violently from side to side three or four times -- just enough to make a statement. Buster would slowly and purposefully get up off of the couch as Simba would run towards the nondescript kitchen table with the light beige top, his head slightly turned to the side, eyeing Buster to see if - or be sure that - ol’ Buster was following closely behind.
Simba would position himself on one side of the table - and Buster would stand staring at him from across the table. The table's two legs which each fanned out to two more posts, stood as strong, steady pillars and effectively blocked Buster from lunging straight at Simba through the table to grab and recapture what was rightfully his. Buster would stand there facing Simba. With his back to me all I could see was Buster's posture, firm and tall, his floppy yellow retriever ears standing higher up than normal at their base which I knew indicated that he was at full attention. Buster didn't flinch. I knew from the occasional times I observed Buster from the other angle 180 degrees away that Buster's eyes were following Simba's every move -- but he didn't move a muscle, not a tenth of an inch. I began to understand how incredibly smart Buster was for not lending chase -- after all, he was fourteen years Simba's senior and in his teens probably could not have sustained a game of chasing Simba around the table for very long. Instead, he would use the wisdom that comes with age and outwait Simba's youthful impetuousness, letting Simba run himself ragged into the ground and then, when Sim least expected it - pounce and retrieve the prize - the toy which after all was rightfully his! I could see the wheels turning inside Buster's head - - - and Simba's as well.
Simba would eye Buster cautiously. Without moving a muscle his eyes would then dart to the right, as if to suggest to Buster that that was the direction he was intending to run. Sometimes he'd accentuate that fact by moving his head quickly glancing in that direction as if to make certain that the path to his right was free of impediment. He'd stop to see if Buster was going to take a step in that direction. Buster didn't move. So Simba would take a quick step to the right, then stop. Still Buster didn't move. This game of combined speed and strategy could go on for upwards of an hour and it was engaging to say the least, to watch the two of them strategize, each one trying to outsmart and outplay the other. Buster strategizing. . . Simba relying on his youth and speed. Occasionally Simba would run a few steps to the right or a few steps to the left, tiring himself out all the while Buster would remain a sentinel. Finally, Simba would have to leave his position in order to engage Buster. He'd inch closer then step back quickly into place safely out of Buster's grasp. Buster waited patiently. Simba would shake Buster's toy at him. 'See! Here! I've got your toy! You want it, you're going to have to come get it!' Buster didn't move an inch. Simba would carefully, cautiously move in ever closer. Closer still. 'I've got it. It's right here. All you have to do is....' Buster lunged taking Simba off-guard during his ritual of showmanship, and grasping one end of the toy in his mouth would quickly yank it away from Sim. But Simba quickly jerked his head around, re-grasping it with his mouth and wrenching the toy from out of Buster's grasp by the sheer rapidity and stunning firmness of the movement and then he'd start running in the other direction. 'Catch me! Catch me! You can't catch me! I've got your toy! I've got it! I've got it!!' And off Simba would run, circling the base of this forty-two inch round otherwise non-descript table, Buster giving chase. Occasionally I would join in the game, yelling incentives from the couch to rile them even more. "Run. Get it Buster! Run Simmy, run!" But more often than not, I just enjoyed the game quietly from the sidelines, content to let the two of them play together. They loved each other very much.
(Providence) It's early January 2005, and I am sitting alone in my cold and barren New England apartment. The faucet is open ever so slightly because if it isn’t, the pipes ill freeze and burst. I hear the drip, drip, dip like tears they fall and are gone. The movers finally came weeks after my own arrival, and the boxes the left sit there still piled high, untouched. The only things unpacked are those that I had had with me during the drive cross-country. Simba's and Buster's toys and a large navy blue cushion with Simba's name embroidered across it in red. They are there in the quiet in the empty alcove next to my bed. Several feet of snow falling outside my window, one snowflake at a time I watch them fall silently to the ground and pile high or disappear. A dead silence lays heavily here, and I am frozen and all is still.
A black vinyl First Aid Kit, a repurposed hanging cosmetic bag with the words 'First Aid Simba' emblazoned in gold marker in my handwriting across the back is hanging in my bathroom. Across the upper right hand pocket in gold: "Benadryl/prednisone prn as needed for allergies, one each; Ascriptin one daily for hips, soloxine 0.8 (1/2 in AM 1/2 in PM) for thyroid; Cosequin DS one DAILY. I can see the black bag from where I am seated on my bed. I had packed all of Simmy's meds and anything else I might possibly need for him medically in this bag. I was prepared for almost any sort of emergency that might arise. Well, almost any sort of emergency. A bottle of Skin Formula 3V Caps by DVM For Large & Giant Breeds of Dogs containing 250 capsules; a concentrated dietary supplement containing Fish Oil, a source of Omega-3 Polyunsaturated fatty acid plus Vitamins A , D & E. His vet, A.S., recommended it as a great source of Vitamin E. (I later would wonder, after reading this vet's 'testimonial' about the product and his article on the DVM website, what exactly was the relationship was between him and this company. Did he own stock in it? Did they help him obtain new clients through this 'expert discusses the product' plug on their website? Did he get a kickback from the drug company for prescribing x-number of pieces of their product, perhaps in the form of weekend getaways to the Four Seasons in Santa Barbara or something of the like? The latter, I may add, is an incentive to prescribe which the law banned years ago for medical doctors -- making it illegal for a drug company to influence the prescribing patterns of physicians and surgeons. Did this sort of incentivizing exist within the veterinary 'profession' between vets and drug companies? - - I was sure it did.) "Cortizone-10 Plus 10 Moisturizers, maximum strength 1% Hydrocortisone anti-itch Creme. I would gently rub this between Simba's toes and between the pads on the underside of his feet when they were all beefy-red inflamed. His allergies were severe during certain times of the year and this afforded him great relief. The only problem was, he used to try to lick it off - and I would have to sit with him, gently holding his head away from his feet to prevent him from removing the medication before it could take effect. Sometimes I would put it on his toes when he was in a deep sleep, to avoid this problem entirely. I trimmed my own nails very short, so that I wouldn't stick him with them when rubbing the white creme between his pads, a narrow area made more difficult to reach by the edema or beefy red swelling. There is a baby-proof container of Soloxine, 0.8 mg, Quantity 120. It says "give one half (1/2) tablet twice daily every 12 hours until gone. " I gave it at exactly the same time every day, twelve hours apart as indicated, 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. -- or as close to that time as possible. There is a bottle of 65 pills of Prednisone, 5 mg tablets. It is dated December 4, 2003. I kept it in case of an emergency -- like a bee sting or something. There is a second similar container dated October 24, 2003. Simba was bitten by something, perhaps a bee, and went into anaphylactic shock. I almost lost him. I came very, very close. Well, that's another story. There is an unopened bottle of Ascriptin, 100 tablets, 325 mg apiece. I kept asking Simba's vet if this wasn't too high a dose. It really seemed excessive to me and I kept wondering and asking if 81 mg might not be better. I was told by his vet that 325 mg was exactly the right daily dosage. The autopsy results included a report of the GI tract, and when I read it I knew immediately I had been right. It was my understanding that veterinary medicine and human medicine were not the same and I had trusted Simba's vet implicitly. He knew how much I loved Simmy and sold me yet another medication, vitamin, pill, all in the name of Simba's feeling good. Kaching! Kaching! Kaching! I recognized now too late that I had been wrong to trust the vet, and right about the dosage. Simba's gastrointestinal tract was a mess. My mind was racing through facts and all at once wondering what else he had done or not done to Simba over the years, and Buster as well, all in the name of the almighty dollar. As a result, Simba must have lived with incredible pain from ulcerative lesions throughout his final days, weeks?, months? ,years?....I burst into tears at the thought. Yes, I had had my First Aid Kit stocked with all sorts of necessities prescribed all too willingly by Simba and Buster's "caring" vet, and I was prepared for anything to keep them safe. Or so I thought.....
The table stood in the breakfast area/ living room. It was stacked with boxes and the floor around the two legs was also stacked high with boxes such that I couldn't see the two legs at all. I could only see the table top from where I was sitting on my bed, out the bedroom door and down the hallway. My breath turned white before disappearing in front of me and I sat and stared at the table at the opposite end of the hallway. It seemed to be sagging underneath the weight of its burden. I closed my eyes and tried to picture Simba and Buster running around the base. But I couldn't and I opened my eyes and sat there staring straight ahead. The room was freezing cold even with the heat on, the kind of chill that permeates you right through to the bone.
[A lavender painting that I had been working on in March, shortly before Buster died on March 16th, hung over the small alcove beneath a small window in my bedroom to the left of my bed. I had decided not to finish the painting but to leave it instead in the condition it was in when Buster passed. It had started out as a beautiful mauve and lavender sky and I was thinking about experimenting with gold leaf for the first time. I was going to place a few gold stars in the sky and I already had a title for the piece --- SERENITY. But when I had tried to work with the gold after reading directions but not really knowing what on earth I was doing, the gold had literally sucked out of my hands and onto the canvas, destroying the beautiful and peaceful sky. I remember jumping up and down at the time and calling out, 'Oh my God! Oh my God!' and trying frantically to get the square sheet of gold off of my canvas and out of my beautiful sky, but to no avail. Simmy and Buster watched me and no doubt had no idea what to make of my antics. Whatever was going on, they knew it couldn't be good. Finally, I gave up. I decided to cover up my error and placed a huge tree right over most of the gold covering it nearly completely. It was a strong tree. Bold. Steady. Strong. A few small branches emanated to the left and flowers started to grow at the base. It would be beautiful. It was already beautiful. But then Buster died. And I knew it would never be complete, and nothing I could do would make it whole. So I left it as it was, and changed the title to "Evening Star." I looked over at the painting and then down at Simba's bed and at Simba's and Buster's toys placed lovingly in a woven straw basket to its left, and tears rolled silently down my cheeks.]
The phone started to ring, and I didn't move. It rang and rang. I let it. I didn't move a muscle. And tears continued to pour down my cheeks silently, where no one could see them. And the phone continued to ring. Alone. Leave me alone. I picked up the receiver and was silent. I dropped it on my bed and ignored it and stared straight ahead at nothingness. I heard a voice yelling though it seemed very quiet and way off in the distance. "PICK UP THE PHONE! " The voice was familiar, though I rarely - no, never - heard her yell. It was my friend calling from Los Angeles. “Hey! Are you there? What's going on? Talk to me!” I didn't respond, and she kept repeating what she was saying. I didn't want her to be upset, but her voice, it was somewhere very far away and though I heard my name, it was coming from another world, another place, another time -- one which I was no longer a part of.....She was yelling again, "What are you doing?" I burst into tears, sobbing so loudly that I could barely hear her voice as she made repeated futile attempts to get through to me. I could barely catch my breath. In-between the wailing I heard her voice calling out to me desperately trying to get through to me -- and I was nowhere, floating, floating through air capsized and unable to feel myself my body letting go and not even trying to reach for anything at all to keep me from floating away - …- - and there was Sim… he was screaming in excruciating pain as his insides blew apart and there he was in front of me his eyes bulging out of his head and me helpless to do anything to save him to take away his pain and i hear the blood-curdling screams and I can’t stop hearing them . . …a year later Peter at UC Davis, the world’’s leading expert on Sim’s disease would tell me he had only once seen a dog with this disease allowed to go without being put to sleep. . he was appalled at what the Los Angeles vet had done and felt that it bordered on criminality - torture and cruelty, and he had said he was so sorry that that had been done to any animal, especially one so loved. . .. and I can still hear Simba’s cries of pain . . . and where am I now, and, and .. .. my friends voice was suddenly remarkably calm. She talked and continued talking even though I didn't respond.
"Have you unpacked your boxes?"
I made a noise indicating that I had not but didn't say a word. I could hear her sweet and always kind and always happy voice. But nothing would come out of me I struggled in vain I couldn't feel the floor the air gasping gasping…Sim is gasping for air. . his body was contorting, all of his major organ systems were shutting down, the whites of his eyes turned yellow in a flash, the blood, the blood, any moment now the blood exploding from every orifice and the blood curdling screams crying for my HELP! . . . and I couldn’t do a thing. . . . all of my training. . . . and I couldn’t do a thing. . .
"Simba doesn't want you to do this to yourself. What would Simba do if he saw you like this?"
The weeping intensified dramatically for a few moments and then stopped abruptly. What would Simmy do? I toyed with the words my mind repeating them and thinking thinking over and over and over. What would Simmy do? Simba was an extremely sensitive being. Simba couldn't bare to hear me cry. He couldn't bare to even see me upset. Buster would run to me if I was upset and comfort me. It was only twice in all the years as I was never one to get that upset, but I recall his response as if it were yesterday. Both times he laid his head on my lap and lie there quietly until he felt the storm had passed. But not Simba. Simba would be too upset to see me upset, that he would do something unique 'for a dog.' He would run away into another room, the furthest one away in the apartment from wherever I was at and bury his head underneath a pillow so as not to hear me cry. He absolutely couldn't bare to hear me cry and he would get as far away from me as possible. I thought suddenly of how my crying would affect Simba and my uncontrollable sobs turned soft and intermittent until they came in short bursts. I was quiet, still.
She valiantly tried again. "Have you unpacked any of your art supplies?"
Some sounds again indicating that I had not.
"Even your paints?"
"mm --mm" (No)
"Do you know where they are?" And then again more insistently as I continued to sob. "Do you know where they are?"
"mm -- mm" (yes)
"What about a canvas? Do you have any out?"
"mm -- mm" (No) Gasp. Sobbing.
Quietly. Firmly. "Listen to me. I want you to get them out. Get out your paints."
“You weren’t there! His head exploded. You didn’t see. You didn’t see what he did to him. He could have been put to sleep humanely. He didn’t need to suffer like that. You didn’t see. You didn’t see . . . ” the sobbing intensified.
"Get out your paints. Just do it. Won't you do that for me? Put the phone down but don't hang up. Get up and go get your paints. Just do that for me. "
I put down the phone and walked into the hallway and among and past the boxes. I could hear the dripping from the bathroom faucet falling like hidden tears in a room where nobody else could hear them . . . Piled in the kitchen next to Simba's things were other things I’d hauled cross country in the car with us, other things I valued. There were several boxes of paints. I opened one up and stood down staring at the paints. What I had thought I valued most …..
"Is there anything in your apartment that you can paint? Anything at all?"
I stared out from my bedroom again at the kitchen table with the boxes piled high on it and all around its base. There was no canvas anywhere. Finally I spoke.
"I could paint the kitchen table," I said quietly. "But that was their table...." my voice trailed off.
"I want you to paint. I need you to go and paint that table. Will you do that? Do it for him. And then I need you to answer the phone. I'm going to call you back. You need to pick up the phone. Do you hear me?"
"Yes."
Something really basic had been missed, something essential about my understanding of what a man would do for money . . . I don’t think I fully understood that depravity, corruption, greed, self-centeredness, I don’t think I understood any of it, but I began to, and this new understanding arrived in a deep and visceral way. Suddenly I understood. And that understanding changed everything. Somebody needed to stand up for the most vulnerable among us. Someone capable and courageous; someone with a powerful voice. Not quiet. Not meek. Not shy. Unafraid. I had to let that go even though it had been such an integral part of who I was - especially as a woman. Two completely different people began to emerge. One incredibly intuitive and so very sensitive, the other stronger and tougher than hell. I didn’t know it back then or for years afterwards, but it was in those moments that I became a very, very different person.
I moved robotically down the hallway and into the kitchen area and started to clear the table. Pink and blue are the color of babies, the color of our children, but I chose deeper versions of both the pinks and blues, favorite shades that I truly loved. And I started to paint. I scribbled Simba's name repeatedly into the background and I worked all night long and into the next morning. When I was done, I put down my brushes and other tools and instruments and stared at the table. Beautiful flowers burst out over the table and the words "you saved my life yet I let you down," mixed with my tears "and yet that last night you rolled over and licked my face as if to say 'it's okay' " and on and on, and the words "eternity" and "Simmy and "my Shmangel Angel” -one of your many nicknames, and “Forgive me . . .”
Simba and Buster... SiBu Around This (very) Table, where they once played.
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(Christmastime, RI) A lady from a local charity came bargain hunting and to haul my stuff away late one evening in December 2005. I had made a decision to return to southern California and take legal action against the veterinarian to the stars because of what I learned - what had actually been done to Simmy - and I needed to unload as many personal possessions as possible in order to make the three thousand mile trip yet again; my bicycle, my potted plants, most of my books, dishes, a washer and dryer, an armoire . . . Something caught the eye of the Lady from the charity, and she stared across the room at what was once my kitchen table and then walked over to the once nondescript table to get a better look at it.
"Is this for sale?" she asked. "It's really beautiful. So joyful. There's something about it that I really love." She strained to make out the writing.
"No. Definitely not for sale," I responded politely staring across the room at the table for a moment and cringing so painfully at her use of the word 'joyful.'
"Oh!" she said disappointed. "Well if you were to sell it," she said still trying to make out the writing, "how much money would you consider taking for it," she prodded.
"No amount of money. It's not for sale." I hesitated, then added quietly in a barely audible whisper, "I painted it for my boys after my youngest died." I didn't bother to mention that my boys were of the four-legged variety. Few people I knew would, could understand how much "an animal" meant to a person. I knew she assumed I was talking about a human child. And I didn't correct that impression. He was my child no matter what anyone thought.
"Oh my God. I'm so sorry. I didn't know." She backed away. "It's strange, it seems so happy I never would have thought...." her voice trailed off. "How old was he?"
"He had just had a birthday. His birthday was November second," I responded more to remind myself than to answer her question. I was facing off into space staring at nothingness when I turned to face her and said, "He was eight years old."
"Oh. So young. That's horrible. I'm so sorry. I don't know what I'd even do if I didn't have children. I can't imagine not having them, or worse still, losing one. It's awful to lose a child."
"Yes." I responded. "Yes. It is."
SIBU AROUND THIS TABLE _ 2004-2005 __ Oil on Wooden Tabletop
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