Happy Father’s Day to all you dads and dad’s-to-be.  Basically most men.

Last night the kids and I made more artwork for the ever growing wall.

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The hospital staff comes in and looks at whatever we have recently added and many of them even ask me about the kids as they pass me in the hallway. Apparently, they don’t always get a bigger picture of the patient they are working on, or have any notion of their world outside. (Today, however, I heard about a trauma patient who had posters wrapping outside of the room into the main hallway. Hopefully we won’t be here that long.)

And our little project of bringing things to Vernon’s wall, though it was originally about giving him something familiar and special to wake up to, has caused the three of us at home to draw closer at a table without Dad.  We can find strength in our collective story, but we also have another way to reach out to him from home. Its a shame only “artists” learn how to express themselves this way, because I truly believe that taking the time to create anything is a powerful tool. Its not about the outcome, as much as it is the experience of getting something out of yourself onto a surface of some kind.  Try it, really! (Just don’t be hard on yourself about it…or worry about what someone else might say. That’s the killer.)

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Here are some that Maki and I made last night. Mine (on the right)  is pretty self explanatory: helmets save lives. (Duh!)

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Maki’s is much more interesting. He said the face in the storm is us, happy yet crying tears of sadness, which collect in the ocean of prayers that hold Daddy up in a peaceful boat.  Whoa. Even the respirator technician, who came in to the room as I was hanging this, looked at it once and said it should be framed.

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Even though I have pretty much used all the tape from the hospital desk (wonder what insurance will charge for THAT?) Tracy, the sweet-taking receptionist, offered me some of her craft supplies to send yet another Father’s Day message to our main man.

 

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From Father’s Day, 2013

 

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