The excitement of our family Christmas was shattered into painful shards of shock and sorrow as we gathered, not to celebrate Christmas but instead to bury this witty, philosophical boy.
The request that I paint Nathan’s portrait came during a visit to Jo-Anne and her family more than two years after he died.
“I don’t think I can do it—at least not yet,” I replied after much thought. “I’ll have to wait until I feel I can attempt such a task. Is that okay with you?”
“No problem, whenever you feel ready.” Jo-Anne leaned back and relaxed.
A number of years passed during which I did no painting at all. I focused on writing instead. I sold a few magazine articles, published a cookbook, wrote plays and a novel. While I was waiting for a publisher to turn the novel I’d submitted into a bestseller, I began another novel.
Through the planning stages of this new novel, I outlined the setting, plot and drew individual personality sketches. My problem was the main male character. I’d wrestled with different traits, quirks and habits to make my hero a believable human being, but still he wasn’t a person I could see, feel or hear.
“What about me, Auntie?” asked a tall, fair-haired young man in my dreams one night. I awoke in the pre-dawn hours and wondered who this youthful man could be. He seemed familiar. After a trip to the bathroom and a glass of water, I returned to bed. The visionary state resumed immediately when my head settled onto the pillow. Again, this man emerged from the fuzzy periphery of my sub-consciousness, asking, “What about me, Auntie? I could be the Nathan in your story, couldn’t I?”
His silly little grin finally registered in my brain. “Nathan?” I asked cautiously.
“Yes, Auntie, it’s me. Have you forgotten me?” He’d grown tall and lean, much like his two older brothers, Nicholas and Steven. His sandy-coloured hair poked out around the edges of the white straw cowboy hat he’d worn religiously as a kid. Somehow the hat suited the adult Nathan as much as it had the boy. “Have I changed so much?” he asked.
A wave of sadness swept over me. I wondered how he’d managed to grow up without my noticing. My conscious mind had been switched off and in this this dreamlike reverie, it never occurred to me that Nathan was dead and I had not seen him since he was ten. Furthermore, I would never see him as an adult, except in this semi-conscious state. I smiled, thinking how lucky I was to have this encounter with him.
“No, Nathan, I haven’t forgotten you. In fact, I think about you often. You really haven’t changed all that much. It’s just that you’ve matured and you’re so tall. How did that happen?”
“Here,” he said, spreading his arms, “anything is possible.” Nathan laughed and turned to leave.
“Don’t go yet.”
“Sorry, I have to run.”
“But, I don’t know the young man you would have become, so how can you be my inspiration?”
He glanced back over his shoulder and said, “Just use your imagination, Auntie. See you again sometime.” And, he disappeared into the heavenly ether before I could utter another word. It happened so quickly, yet at the same time, it felt like the floating effortlessness of slow motion.
The next day, Nathan, the character in my novel, made himself known to me. I could clearly visualize the man from my night-time meeting. As I wrote, he became his own person, complete with tall good looks, charm, gentleness, consideration, determination, insecurities and imperfections. This was the man my nephew, Nathan, could have become—had his life not been snatched prematurely.
Whether or not my sister will see her son in the character in my novel, I do not know, for she has not yet read the story. The book has yet to find a publisher, but that too, is possible. In the meantime, I know that I’ve begun painting Nathan’s portrait, except, instead of oil on canvas, it’s words on a page.
