TRUE LOVE
departed
My grandparents divorced when my father was a teenager. While my grandmother was bitter, Dad felt under-appreciated & Uncle Darryl sulked, I just thought Grandpa was faux-grouchy prankster.
Our days were filled with ice cream trips, tickle fights, playing house–and the eyebrows. He had the craziest eyebrows EVER. He would drag his fingers across his brow bone until they met in the middle. The resulting woolly-worm brows sent me into an endless spiral of giggling.
He re-married the lovely Anna who developed severe rheumatoid arthritis at a very young age. She suffered dozens of surgeries & joint replacements only to lose most of her mobility. He happily waited on her hand & foot. He carried her to & from bed. He cut her food. He colored her hair.
He LOVED her. I loved him.
At 69, Anna left this world too soon. A few months later after a routine hip surgery, he developed staphylococcal meningitis. His body just quit. The piece inspired by this photograph is entitled “Shot from the Hip,” and the show of which it is a part, Do I Know You? opens in July of 2014 at The Balcony Gallery at The Emporium Center in Knoxville, TN.