PARENTS' BEDROOM WINDOW PASTEL
BY William Mansfield
This drawing depicts my parents' bedroom on the morning after my Mother passed away. This room was my parents'
bedroom for 30 years and they lived a good life there, but their last years became difficult. Both of them passed away in this room.
The wheelchair in the picture was purchased for my Father when he began to have difficulty walking in the last years of his life. My Father contracted polio when he was 2 years old, in 1922 or 1923, which paralyzed the muscles of his right leg, and he walked with a brace on his right leg throughout his life. The brace was a large, heavy contraption which covered the length of his leg from his foot to his upper thigh. It was made of chrome metal struts with leather straps, and a cable which he pulled to either bend it or snap it straight, depending on whether he was standing or sitting. He wore the same brace throughout my entire life, and I thought he could have gotten something lighter and more comfortable as technology improved, but he never did. He lived independently for most of his life, but in his later years he began to suffer from post-polio syndrome. He began to have increasing difficulty with walking, and had several falls. Once he fell into a bookcase with glass doors, breaking the glass, but luckily survived with no cuts or major injuries. Then in 2003 he had a stroke, and became completely incapacitated.
My Mother became a virtual prisoner in this room after my Father’s stroke. He needed 24/7 care, and was unable to do anything for himself, so it became my Mother’s full time job to care for him. To me the wheelchair became a symbol of futility, of our inability to keep up with the pace of my Father’s decline. We bought him a walker, but soon he could no longer stand. We bought him the wheelchair, and soon he could no longer sit upright. My Mother bought him several puzzles and games in an attempt to improve his mental acuity, but to no avail. My Father’s mental and physical decline had a terrible sense of inevitability, and every move we made seemed to be one step behind what he actually needed. It was as though we were trying to stop a landslide or some other force of nature which was simply beyond our control.
The wheelchair eventually came to be used as a cart. My Mother used it to shuttle trays of food and coffee, cleaning supplies, and other materials around the house. Her last years were very difficult and demanding. She worked very hard taking care of my Father. She was a registered nurse with decades of experience, so she understood the work and knew what to do. But it was still very demanding for her, and her own advanced age and physical problems added to the challenge. She remarked several times that she was proud of the fact that my Father never developed any bedsores, because she was careful to make sure he changed positions and turned him. She had every right to be proud of her work, because she took great care of my Father under very difficult conditions, while at the same time struggling with her own physical issues as she became elderly.
My Mother lived for roughly two years after my Father passed away, and she got to take an exciting trip to Washington DC with an organization called Elderhostel, where she toured a number of the foreign embassies. It was the last trip she ever took, and it was a great experience for her which she talked about incessantly. After all of her struggles taking care of my Father, it was great to see her take this trip. I was very happy for her. Unfortunately at the outset of this trip she slipped and fell at the Indianapolis airport, injuring her leg. She never fully recovered, and it seemed to precipitate her own physical and mental decline.
I found it symbolically appropriate that my Mother placed the wheelchair facing outward toward the window. The wheelchair symbolized the struggles of the physical world, and the window represented the ultimate spiritual release. I drew all the branches outside the window pointing out and away from the room, to visually emphasize the spirit being drawn out of the room and toward freedom and final release. This is also the window that the huge buck would lie in front of when he visited my Mother. At my Mother’s memorial service I had two songs played which had this theme. “Angel Band” and “I’ll Fly Away” were the two songs, both of which were old folk/gospel songs which addressed the theme of spiritual release from the struggles of the physical life. This drawing is meant to address the same theme.
BY William Mansfield
This drawing depicts my parents' bedroom on the morning after my Mother passed away. This room was my parents'
bedroom for 30 years and they lived a good life there, but their last years became difficult. Both of them passed away in this room.
The wheelchair in the picture was purchased for my Father when he began to have difficulty walking in the last years of his life. My Father contracted polio when he was 2 years old, in 1922 or 1923, which paralyzed the muscles of his right leg, and he walked with a brace on his right leg throughout his life. The brace was a large, heavy contraption which covered the length of his leg from his foot to his upper thigh. It was made of chrome metal struts with leather straps, and a cable which he pulled to either bend it or snap it straight, depending on whether he was standing or sitting. He wore the same brace throughout my entire life, and I thought he could have gotten something lighter and more comfortable as technology improved, but he never did. He lived independently for most of his life, but in his later years he began to suffer from post-polio syndrome. He began to have increasing difficulty with walking, and had several falls. Once he fell into a bookcase with glass doors, breaking the glass, but luckily survived with no cuts or major injuries. Then in 2003 he had a stroke, and became completely incapacitated.
My Mother became a virtual prisoner in this room after my Father’s stroke. He needed 24/7 care, and was unable to do anything for himself, so it became my Mother’s full time job to care for him. To me the wheelchair became a symbol of futility, of our inability to keep up with the pace of my Father’s decline. We bought him a walker, but soon he could no longer stand. We bought him the wheelchair, and soon he could no longer sit upright. My Mother bought him several puzzles and games in an attempt to improve his mental acuity, but to no avail. My Father’s mental and physical decline had a terrible sense of inevitability, and every move we made seemed to be one step behind what he actually needed. It was as though we were trying to stop a landslide or some other force of nature which was simply beyond our control.
The wheelchair eventually came to be used as a cart. My Mother used it to shuttle trays of food and coffee, cleaning supplies, and other materials around the house. Her last years were very difficult and demanding. She worked very hard taking care of my Father. She was a registered nurse with decades of experience, so she understood the work and knew what to do. But it was still very demanding for her, and her own advanced age and physical problems added to the challenge. She remarked several times that she was proud of the fact that my Father never developed any bedsores, because she was careful to make sure he changed positions and turned him. She had every right to be proud of her work, because she took great care of my Father under very difficult conditions, while at the same time struggling with her own physical issues as she became elderly.
My Mother lived for roughly two years after my Father passed away, and she got to take an exciting trip to Washington DC with an organization called Elderhostel, where she toured a number of the foreign embassies. It was the last trip she ever took, and it was a great experience for her which she talked about incessantly. After all of her struggles taking care of my Father, it was great to see her take this trip. I was very happy for her. Unfortunately at the outset of this trip she slipped and fell at the Indianapolis airport, injuring her leg. She never fully recovered, and it seemed to precipitate her own physical and mental decline.
I found it symbolically appropriate that my Mother placed the wheelchair facing outward toward the window. The wheelchair symbolized the struggles of the physical world, and the window represented the ultimate spiritual release. I drew all the branches outside the window pointing out and away from the room, to visually emphasize the spirit being drawn out of the room and toward freedom and final release. This is also the window that the huge buck would lie in front of when he visited my Mother. At my Mother’s memorial service I had two songs played which had this theme. “Angel Band” and “I’ll Fly Away” were the two songs, both of which were old folk/gospel songs which addressed the theme of spiritual release from the struggles of the physical life. This drawing is meant to address the same theme.