The Old Brown Rocker
Of all the things I gave my mom over the years, what did she save because it was a true treasure to her heart? Was it my penmanship papers, my math homework, my book reports? True, she saved some of those! But it was my art that she treasured, and one piece in particular.
It’s not that my art rang with amazing talent, or that my designs were revolutionary, or even that my technique was admirable. It was that I created the art myself, and designed it with my mother in mind. There’s one picture I drew in third grade showing the brown overstuffed rocker that graced her bedroom throughout my childhood, where she rocked me when I had a fever or a bad day. It’s an odd little drawing – just a brown rocker with a throw pillow in the corner of the seat. If you look, you can see I was trying some very fancy colors and working to get texture to make the rocker something special. To most people, the drawing is just a chair. But to my mom and to me, it was the symbol of how much she loved me and cared for me.
She treasured my brown rocker drawing and kept it wrapped in white tissue in her dresser drawer. Now that she’s gone, having died much too young and long before I was ready to say goodbye, I treasure the little drawing as a reminder that she loved me enough to save my drawing because we shared a special piece of furniture. The little drawing speaks volumes of my perfect childhood with her watching over me and caring for me. My little childhood drawing brings me closer to her than all the photographs I have of her. If I could, I’d let her rock me one more time in our old brown overstuffed rocker.
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This post was contributed by MaryAnn F. Kohl. MaryAnn is the renowned author of over 20 books about art for children. Her books are published both by Gryphon House and by her own company, Bright Ring Publishing. MaryAnn invites you to connect with her on Facebook, Twitter, and her own blog.
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