little bird, little bird

Over at my Secrets of the Home blogspot, have been sharing some family letters & papers recently rediscovered during some Big Dig clearing out & reclaiming in our beloved, but too often unattended to home.  Would that everyone had such a wondrous opportunity to reassess, reaffirm or reconcile with ancient histories, personalities, dynamics!

It's also given me the opportunity for regrets over dumb things I did that touched others who meant the world to me.  

A pang of remembered short-sightedness hit me, looking at a small framed drawing of a little bird.  It was drawn for & given to Mom by dear family friend, Marguerite de Angeli.  Looking at it, can see the faint impression of writing on the back where Mom wrote, "Given to Kay Lockhart by..."  

When I saw that Mom had written on the back of that precious little drawing, I could not contain my disbelief.  "How could you write - with pen! - on the back of Marguerite's drawing!  It shows through.  It mars the drawing."

The words had barely come flying out of my mouth than I regretted them.  Mom looked so downcast.  She had done something wrong, had acted foolishly.  Her thoughts were written as much in the sag of her body as upon her face.
 
In a wave of remorse, it dawned on me that the picture had been drawn for Mom by a friend.  She would have written the same thing on the back if it had been done by Jack Lear or Max Berg or any other of her artist friends.  I was struck to the core that my only thought had been its marred financial value;  to Mom, the description only enhanced its worth.

Immediately, I made my apologies.  It was her picture to do with as she pleased.  But I could see that while my words helped soothe, they did not completely convince.  Looking at that sweet drawing, I knew that while Mom would always & forever remember a dear friend, some small part of her would be needlessly kicking herself for lessening its value by "thoughtlessly" writing on its back.

Looking at that little picture today, thought about how doubly triply infinitely precious it is to me, a picture drawn by a special friend for a woman she treasured, its legend scrawled on the back in Mom's hand writing, and carrying a lesson I immediately learned & will never forget - it wasn't mine, it was hers & to Mom its financial worth would never come remotely close to its heart value.