June 3, 2018
Unitarian Society of New Haven
Blessings in This Guise by Jesse Greist
Rafael’s parents had high hopes that he would be a doctor, or a lawyer, an architect or an engineer. They got him legos and construx for his birthday, a real working stethoscope and a copy of Grey’s Anatomy for Christmas, and a book of latin grammar appeared in his Easter basket, in front of the stuffed bunny. So, it naturally took all their restraint and facial muscle control when Rafael declared at family dinner one night “Mom. Dad. I have decided – I want to go to art school.”
“That’s great, son” said Rafael’s father, quietly opening another Roth IRA on his phone under the table.
That year, Rafael was overjoyed when his birthday brought him pastels, canvas and a book about how to draw bridges and buildings; and when Christmas brought the full color illustrated Grey’s Anatomy, and Easter brought modeling clay and a scale model of the blind justice statue for the display shelf in his room. Baby steps, am I right, parents?
Most of the memories of Rafael’s childhood and teenage years flew by. Between school and camp, clubs, volunteering and family trips, time seemed to evaporate faster than the water that cleaned Rafael’s horse hair brushes.
But, like most families, Rafael and his parents documented their adventures in pictures, and kept most of these in photo albums carefully curated and stored below the art display case, which had moved from Rafael’s bedroom into the living room ever since he had moved on to Rhode Island School of Design.
Then the hurricane hit. Not one of those metaphorical hurricanes, mind you. A real superstorm. The wind tore trees from their roots and the water rose higher than ever before. It flooded Rafael’s childhood home. He came home from school to help sort through the mess that was left behind. Flooring, carpets and furniture were ruined, but could be replaced. Siding, windows and shingles too. A couple of paintings and sculptures didn’t make it, but others did. People all over town, including Rafael’s family, counted their blessings that no one had been hurt or lost their life.
What broke Rafael’s parents’ hearts was that the photo albums from years of marriage and childhood got soaked through, the emulsified memories literally fading and crumpling before their eyes.
When Rafael’s father said a prayer and gently placed the photos in the trash, Rafael followed behind, quietly removed them and put them in the back of his car.
Rafael returned to school, and found himself struggling with the theme of his final painting of the semester. No matter, it will come to me, he told himself. He spread the washed out photos all around his room, and tried to reconstruct each moment in the context of his life’s story. This one was…what? The zoo maybe? This one was… Oh yeah, that camping trip to Acadia?
The memories came slowly back to him, as devoid of color and texture as the paper before his eyes. Instinctively, almost absent-mindedly, Rafael reached for his finest brushes and began to work. He gently, lovingly began to reconstruct the lines and fill in the colors of each photo, and as he did, something surprising happened. The memories came back to him too, vivid and alive. It wasn’t just the zoo. It was the moment when a howler monkey had met his eye through the glass and put it’s hand up in greeting. It wasn’t just the camping trip to Acadia. It was the morning when they woke up to a moose grazing outside, who had let them watch from a respectful distance for hours. The monkey’s hand on the glass, the moose just beyond the tents, with the water sparkling in the glare of sunrise, each detail jumped back to life as Rafael’s brushes moved and danced over the Kodachrome surface.
Later that year, as family gifts were exchanged, Rafael’s parents cried tears of joy when they unwrapped their new painted photo album and realized that their son had become so much more than their original dreams had contained. He was a healer, a builder, a public defender of memory, and as all children are, he was a work of art.