One of the things I love best about the Disability Studies blog of Temple University is when Penny notes the birthdays of interesting, accomplished people whose lives relate to disability studies for some reason or other, either because they themselves are/were disabled or because they have achieved something in the field -- sometimes both. Penny's tribute to author Jane Yolen today reminded me that this is also the birthday of my late mother, Stephanie Cooper, who was bipolar and arthritic, and also, as I have mentioned countless times, a brilliant artist and my first, best teacher. She would have been 75. (Examples of her work appear throughout this post. Click on each image to see a larger version in a pop-up window.)
You might think it odd that I could forget her birthday until reminded of it by something so completely random. Usually in the past 15½ years, this has been a miserable day for me, a day of guilt and loss, not a day I could forget. My mother died homeless and alone, you see, and by her own hand, all of which is partly my fault, and the end of a long, complicated story I can never hope to tell adequately.
This year, finally, I miss her and am still sorry, but feel at peace. I think it's partly because I don't think she would have lived much past 70 in any event, because people in our family usually don't. It may also be because this year I made an anonymous donation of some handmade winter gear to a local shelter for homeless women. It's something she taught me to do.
Below is a portrait of my mother which I created for an art school assignment the year she turned 50. (Click to enlarge, of course.)
She loved this portrait. She felt it really captured who she was and where she was at at that time.
This next image is a portrait she made of me from a photo she took when I was 16, from memory, and from her ideal image of me having a happy day.
It's good. It's true, which is what she insisted was the most important thing about any work of art, that it should be true.
Part of the truth is that she is in the picture, too, just out of frame. Like now. Like always in my life.
Look, I don't believe in any kind of god or afterlife, and I don't believe she can hear me if I talk to her. But I also don't believe I know everything, so on the off-chance that I'm wrong about this, happy birthday, Mom. I hope things are better where you are.
Of course, part of where you will always be is wherever I am.
Yes, still. Thanks for that.
Lovely, Sara! Your photograph of your mother is especially compelling in contrast--your crisp black-and-white interior portrait, among her colorful landscapes and botanical images.
Glad you like the biographical posts--they seem to be a popular feature, according to our sitemeter, and I enjoy writing them up.
Posted by: Penny Richards | February 12, 2007 at 10:20 AM
Thanks, Penny.
I'm not surprised those posts are so popular. They are excellent, informative and enlightening. Even when the stories are marked by sadness, I always feel I've been given something when I read them.
Please keep up the great work!
Cheers!
Posted by: Sara | February 12, 2007 at 10:51 AM
I'm glad that you were able to find some peace, and I thank you for introducing me to the Disabilities Study Blog--I'm a Temple alum (Law '01), and it's great to see such a wonderful representation of the school in the blogosphere. Hope your mom is enjoying her day.
Posted by: sognatrice | February 12, 2007 at 11:41 AM
Great post. and beautiful art.
WCD
Posted by: wheelchairdancer | February 12, 2007 at 12:32 PM
Beautiful! Thanks for sharing.
Posted by: Kay | February 13, 2007 at 12:56 AM
Especially love the portrait of you at 16, and what you say about it--that your mother is there, just out of the frame, as she still is.
A beautiful and moving piece, Sara.
Posted by: patry | February 19, 2007 at 11:07 AM