Sunday Morning – “Tami’s Cross”
Happy Sunday & happy 4th of July!
I bought my wife roses for Valentine’s Day. I like flowers and enjoy photographing them. These particular red roses I bought my wife lasted a very long time. So long that I even asked her if I could move them by my desk so I could enjoy them. Then she kept asking me when I was going to throw them out. That is when I thought of my sister Tami. I loved those roses, their beauty and enjoyed looking at them. I never stopped enjoying them. They never lost their beauty to me. I thought of Tami in a way that no matter if she could walk or not, if she could move her arms or not, she was still my big sister, still Steve’s husband and still Luke & Brittany’s mother. When I saw her or spoke to her, no matter when, she was always the same Tami I had always known, just ever increasing perspective on life. When my wife said that it was time to throw the roses out, I decided to take a couple. No idea what I was going to do with them. The next day she still hadn’t thrown them out so I grabbed a couple more and did the same the following day. When I lined them up in the man-room one day. I noticed that they were all at a slightly different stage in their life. I arranged the roses in a straight vertical line. To me, they looked like one single rose’s journey or progression, never losing its beauty at any point along its path. Again, thinking of Tami. I started spraying coats of polyurethane once again not knowing what I was going to do with them. I just knew I kept thinking of Tami while I was working on it. A few weeks later I had an idea to place them on a thin piece of wood. I made a piece of wood, sanded it, stained it and liked it. It was just too long so I cut a piece off one end, once again not knowing what I was doing. And then it finally came to me; place the smaller piece across the other, horizontally making a cross, a cross of roses… for Tami.
I finished it, liked it, but did not know what I was going to do with it. I took a few photos of it, but decided I wanted to take it to the beach. It was the last thing I made in my man-room. After awhile the rose pedals eventually fell off. Then on Monday June 13th, after I received the call from Minnesota, I went to the beach with the cross and I knew what I wanted to do. I finally knew why I spent the time making it, thinking of Tami and maybe knew the end was near and I would be able to share Tami’s Cross with Steve, Luke and Brittany, honoring their mother, wife and my big sister…
Missing, thinking and loving ya Tami!
peace & God bless
tjd
