Cats r us

[BrentW]

From Wednesday's art therapy session, as I tried to get in touch with my inner child. (Don't laugh, please. I am trying pretty much anything that will bring me joy.)

I call this one "Looking back at you." How I managed to capture such an "Aww" factor in her eyes, I do not know.

It was drawn in 15 minutes and at the start of a bout of intense and body-wide pain that yesterday drove me to glugging liquid morphine.

I was at the time of drawing using water-soluble graphite and a water spritzer to draw with, so maybe that had something to do with her expression. No matter: Please enjoy.

[Thepainterswife]

Definitely got the Aww factor 😊

[FredaE in reply to Thepainterswife]

i want to offer it a good home

[BrentW in reply to FredaE]

She would at least be cheap to feed, FredaE. 😀

[BrentW in reply to Thepainterswife]

Thank you for liking her. I was not trying to produce a drawing laden with saccharine. Bbut I cannot hide from the fact that that is precisely what I drew. I wonder if that is indeed a reflection of my inner child. After the other pictures I had drawn in my art therapy sessions, which were red in tooth and claw, I think the art therapist was rather taken aback. I know I was!

[FredaE in reply to BrentW]

she looks disappointed. Is she you or are you creating someone for you to "make it allbetter" for? i suppose the two may be the same

[BrentW in reply to FredaE]

As much as I can, FredaE, she is me. A much, much younger me. Why 'she' when I am a he? Because she was drawn from a reference photo of a tortoiseshell cat, and I understand that they are all female. Maybe she is the feminine side of me.

As much as I can I am trying to get in touch with my younger me to tell myself (himself) that it is okay, that what is happening now is in no way his fault. You see, with my cancer has come guilt -- guilt that I am letting down the people close to me. My wife, when she married me, for example, did not expect that more of our marriage would be spent caring for me than not. The day of the diagnosis in 2004, and many others since (surgery, failed medication, loss of work pension), have been points of inflection where our lives have changed markedly. If I try, I can get amazingly guilty about that. Sometimes the tears at the guilt have flowed copiously.

But I need to be able to say that it is not my fault. I need to be able to reach back to a time of innocence when I knew nothing of cancer, so as to be able to say that life has been -- and is -- good. I am trying to capture that through animal drawings. I once tried through flowers, but they did not express my emotion as much as I wished. So . . . .

All too often what comes across in my animal pictures is anger and bewilderment. With this one, I tried to reach so far back that I could not be angry at the cancer. This is what came out.

Does any of that make any sense? I hope so. Would you still want to give her a home knowing this?

[FredaE in reply to BrentW]

yes

[FredaE in reply to FredaE]

i wanted my reply to be uncomplicated so ihave split it in two. Second half. follows

i am on here becase my late husband had MSA. i was his sole carer and it was tough. if it came to it i COULD have walked away..He couldn't. what i wanted to do was make him better and I could not. He had no reason to feel guilty that what life dished out to him was incurable. and nor have you. what you say makes sense but is not your fault

[Fightinghard]

excellent. As always

[Thepainterswife]

Not saccharine at all , it just provoked a different emotion and as a good artist is able to channel emotion in all its forms definitely one to be proud of and yes probably drawn by the inner child 😊