24x24 Indio, California 

I wanted to paint you something in all pearlescent colors. The symbolism of a pearl is that it is highly feminine, and a symbol of perfection and incorruptibility. A pearl is perfect as she is. There is no reason for it to be cut or enhanced. It comes from the sea, buried but born perfect.

I have always loved your long blonde braid. Your extra bright blue eyes shine like a newborn. 

I have never seen someone become a mother the way you became a mother. You exuded so much joy and excitement when you found out Meghan was coming that you taught me that my mother probably felt that way about having me too. It was a powerful lesson to learn. That is the power of your joy. You reminded me how I was waited for. My arrival was anticipated. And when I was born, I was perfect. Because that is what you emulate in a way that I can identify. 

We grew up in a socioeconomic society that told us every single way to change every single thing about ourselves. But the way you look at your kids, I can feel it in your heart when I see that how you wouldn’t imagine ever changing a thing about any of them. They are your pearls. 

From afar the canvas looks all white. It is within the gifts that the family that came before us gave us that we don’t remember that the light emerges. Gifts that we spend a lifetime not remembering, until suddenly one day, joy comes along, everything changes, and we do remember. Those gifts of remembering, of that return to love, illuminate us all differently. Gifts of love and family that until you experience the pain of losing or the joy of receiving, can only be seen and felt because they would be so hard to describe. 

Thank you for your love, your example, your light, your generosity, your kindness, your support, and for teaching me so much about family. I hope that love radiates out of this canvas for perfect, illuminated you. 

I think it takes a whole lot of us seeing ourselves perfectly in someone else to realize our own drastic and unapologetic perfection and grace. Thank you for your illumination within that mirror. It’s all the truth.