Three Deaths
We have been trying to find a time to talk for a while. Bobbi is the office coordinator for the Lean team at UCSF Medical Center and is always running around taking care of us. I have also been busy as a Lean intern while running my own team of 15.
We finally found some time, Thursday, December 8th, we left early from work to grab a glass of wine at Inner Fog.
Bobbi has a magnetic personality. She lights up the room when she walks in. You can't help but notice her. She is beautiful but her attractiveness goes beyond physical beauty. It's her spirit.
We sat down at a table and started talking. I had so many questions. A few months ago, she told me a cliff notes version of what happened and I broke down in the office, tears streaming down my face. A few weeks later, I painted her this with one condition - I needed to know the whole story. How did three of her closest family members die in three months? How is she coping?
When we started talking, I realized I could write a book on her life.
The moment we sat down, the lights started flickering all over the wine bar. She laughed and causally addressed it "I know Ma." I gave her a curious look. She explained that after her mother passed, it first happened with a salt lamp. When she talked to the lamp, it would respond with flickers. I didn't believe it at first, but as our discussions went on, every time she mentioned Donna, the lights in the room would go crazy. I got the chills.
We started with the first death. Her Grandpa - who raised her along with her 3 uncles. He passed away when she was 16 and her grandmother remarried Joe. At first Joe and Bobbie didn't get along. Bobbie ran away to California but they became friends along the road. And then last March, she got the call that he was in the hospital. He had throat, lung, pancreatic and prostate cancer. "The man had so many things. He loved to drink his JB, play cards, and his Sweet Lips"
His lungs were filling with fluid. They couldn't put a pump in. His immune system was down. He wasn't eating anything and all she could do was feed him fluids with a sponge. She pulled the mucus out of the throat so he could talk.
It wasn't long before she had to talk grandma into taking him to hospice. Bobbi told everyone to "stop trying to make it sounds like unicorn and rainbows." She needed to be real with her grandmother. Grandma asked "are you killing him" and she said "Yes, do we let him sit here or do we take him home and make him comfortable until he dies?" Her grandmother agreed.
Bobbi whispered to Joe "Are you ready to come home?"
"I want a beer and cheese burger."
"You know what home means, you are going home and then home-home"
"Yes, I know. Get me out of here"
She had 8 bottles of morphine to give until Joe died.
April 21st. She buried Joe and stayed there for a few days, and returned to San Francisco the weekend before coming back to work. She didn't realize how exhausted she was until she got home and crashed. She woke up in the morning with her sister calling non stop "You know I haven't slept in months, what the hell?" "Daniele was killed in a car accident, you need to come home now." Danielle is Bobbi's sister.
"How did you react?" I asked, not knowing how to react myself.
"I was in shock. I walked into the bathroom, splashed cold water on my face and said 'give me all the information you have'"
Danielle was ejected from the car. The sun roof sliced her body in half, front half from the back. Despite this, Danielle had an open casket funeral. Bobbi helped the funeral director put her sister back together again.
At the funeral, she pleaded with her family. "Can everyone, right now, in this room, because you are here for my sister, and you want to show respect for her, walk out of here and be kind to one another?"
Two months later her mother died of heartbreak.
One day, after her mother passed, Bobbi was sitting at her grandmother's porch. At one point it was raining and a rainbow appeared. Three birds came flying by, then one would return followed by another and then the third again. Since then she sees the trio all the time - her sister, mother and grandfather as seagulls.
I don't give away many paintings, but when she told me this story, I broke down in tears and immediately went home to paint this for her. For me, nothing inspires quite like sadness.
(03.10.2017)
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Color is a focus of my work for a variety of reasons, but the main reason is for healing. My father was an angry and violent man. He took out his rage on his family daily and I took it upon myself to protect my mother and brother from him by becoming the focus of his fury. We didn’t have much, but my mother filled our home with colorful art to bring radiance into an otherwise dark place. I followed in her footsteps and escaped into vibrant art of all shapes and forms. Getting into the flow of mindful art creation has been the single most important part of my healing. I hope to share the happiness that colorful art brings me with others, especially children.
