Post by Ninmast on May 8, 2009 8:06:17 GMT -5
The tremendous roar of the shuttle's engines racketed our chests like giants beating on gargantuan drums, but we thrust them out in defiance, intensifying the force with which the blows rained down. The heat crisped our skins in a dry wave, even at the distance where we stood safely behind the viewing lines. Though our bodies remained on land, our hair buffeted by the gales the immense thrusters summoned, our hearts lifted up into the heavens with that glorious construction of humankind. Up, up and away, like Superman from the comics, we soared faster and faster, so fast that even the once-mighty gravity of an entire planet could not hold us and we burst free from her hold.
The television switched back to the news anchor who talked about the launch and the satellites it would be releasing into orbit around Mars. The big part was over. Now, they would have scientists talk about the various stages of the mission to follow, things we wouldn't get to see. I turned to my eight-year-old daughter and told her to head on up to bed, that I'd be up to tuck her in shortly. From the glorious heights of space, I felt my heart plummet back to Earth as her wheelchair squeaked off down the hall, then the sound of her shifting over to the lift that brought her upstairs to another chair that would take her to her room.
Susan suffered from Lobstein Syndrome, more commonly known as brittle bone disease. The bones of her lower body were basically hollow, incapable of supporting even her meager weight. There was no cure, and “treatment” consisted of high amounts of Calcium and Vitamin D, with various other medicines, to try to keep them strong enough not to degenerate further. My daughter would spend her entire life in a wheelchair despite her dream. She longed to see space, but I knew it would never happen. She longed to know how it all worked, but I couldn't tell her. I was an artist by profession; such technical things escaped me. I wished I could do better by her, but at times like these, I felt like a failure as a parent.
I sighed as I pushed myself up off the sofa and went upstairs to tuck her in. The house had been my husband's, dead of a car crash when Susan was only two. She didn't remember him. To her, it had always just been the two of us and Nurse Abigaile, the woman from the hospital who took care of her medical and physical therapy needs. She had a room of her own at the house and stayed there during the week for convenience. It was Saturday night, though, and the house was empty save for a child and her widowed mother. It really was too big. Its long halls were impossible to keep heated and funneled drafts throughout the building, and it had twice as many bedrooms as we had uses for, even with a studio, a show-room and an office. The biggest taker of space, however, was the ballroom. Yes, a ballroom. We had no conceivable use for it. When Susan was first conceived, my husband, an architect, dreamed of a grand playroom just for her, but when we discovered her condition, we realized it wouldn't have worked out.
I made my way up to the second floor and down the hall to Susan's room, decorated with glowing planets and plastic stars, charts of space and planetary mobiles. I smiled from the doorway as I watched her form, apparently already asleep. She was a beautiful child, long hair thick as honey and smooth, creamy skin. She was intelligent and sharp-witted, caring and compassionate. Any parent would be crazy not to want a child like her. I felt like I didn't deserve her.
She turned her head toward me as I came over to the side of her bed. “Mommy?” she asked sweetly, and I could tell she had been thinking of something heavy.
“Yes, sweetie?” I asked as I stroked some hair back out of her face.
“You can draw anything, can't you?”
I smiled at that, though I hoped the light was dim enough that she couldn't see the sadness in it. “Just about,” I agreed, thinking of all the exceptions that I wish I could.
“Could you draw me into space?”
I had mumbled some half promise in reply and bid her sleep, but her question hung with me throughout the next day. It was such a simple request, but so impossible to fulfill. It haunted my daily thoughts, to the degree that when I was working on the finer details of a painting of Abraham Lincoln I had hoped to dedicate to the school, I found myself drawing Mars into the poor man's ear lobe. I couldn't shake it from my thoughts. My daughter had called upon the one gift I had, but how could I keep even that from letting her down?
I called Abigaile that night before I went to bed and asked a favor of her. I asked if she could stay over all day, every day, for the next week, so I could work on a particularly large project, though I couldn't tell her the details for fear of a leak. Thankfully, she agreed, and the next day, I set out on my goal in the ballroom, drawing sketches for location plans, design schematics, paint ideas. It was by far the biggest project I had ever undertaken. I came out only for breakfast, dinner and bed, and often would have forgotten all three were it not for Abigaile coming to remind me, though respectfully, she never came inside.
When it looked like the project would carry over another week, however, Abigaile became worried. Susan had already gone to bed and the two of us were sitting in the living room drinking an evening chamomile when she brought it up.
“It's not good for Susan for you to wall yourself out of her life for long periods,” she told me. “I understand you have to take work where you can get it, but no amount of money can make up for that much time avoiding your daughter.”
I couldn't help but give a little laugh, which earned a funny look. “Abigaile, I'm not doing this for money.”
“For charity, then?” the nurse asked, confused. “I know you're fond of them, but still, such time away ...”
I had to cut her short, shaking my head. “It's not for charity, either.” I lowered my voice before finishing, “It's for Susan. She asked me to fulfill her dream without knowing what that would entail, but I promised her, so I'm going to do it.”
And so I did. It took another week before I got it all done, as well as a small fortune for the materials, but as I stepped back and admired it, I thought it my best work of all. It had also been by far my longest, but it was finally time to unveil it for my client.
Susan always loved getting the first glimpse at my finished projects. She was my first critique and after two weeks without her mother, she was particularly eager to see what had kept me away for so long. Still, after all of my work that she's seen, I'd like to think I took her breath away this time.
It wasn't the ballroom she entered when she passed through the door, but the Sea of Tranquility on the lunar surface, famous for being the Apollo 11 landing site and one of the vastest meres on the moon. Behind her glowed the sun in its brilliance and, even more grandly, the blues and greens of the Earth hovered behind and above her, with Venus and Mercury visible between the two. Ahead of her was Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto, all portrayed to perspective scale and design, precisely as one would see it were they truly on the surface. While the floor was replaced with the rough granite coated in fine gray sand that represented the moon, the walls were replaced with black velvet, dotted with holes that were perfect representations of every single visible star. When I shut the door behind us, the illusion was perfect. We were on the moon, standing in the mere staring out at Mars, a view only the rocket from two weeks ago would be able to beat.
I wanted to ask what she thought, but I remained silent, not wanting to interrupt her reverie until I heard her crying. I hurried over and knelt beside her, asking her what was wrong.
“Nothing,” she told me, still crying. “Nothing's wrong. It's a dream come true. We're on the moon. We're in space. You drew me into space! You really did it! You really can draw anything.”
I smiled, much like I had the first time I heard those words, but more happily now as I embraced her. “Yeah, honey. For you, yeah, I can.”
The television switched back to the news anchor who talked about the launch and the satellites it would be releasing into orbit around Mars. The big part was over. Now, they would have scientists talk about the various stages of the mission to follow, things we wouldn't get to see. I turned to my eight-year-old daughter and told her to head on up to bed, that I'd be up to tuck her in shortly. From the glorious heights of space, I felt my heart plummet back to Earth as her wheelchair squeaked off down the hall, then the sound of her shifting over to the lift that brought her upstairs to another chair that would take her to her room.
Susan suffered from Lobstein Syndrome, more commonly known as brittle bone disease. The bones of her lower body were basically hollow, incapable of supporting even her meager weight. There was no cure, and “treatment” consisted of high amounts of Calcium and Vitamin D, with various other medicines, to try to keep them strong enough not to degenerate further. My daughter would spend her entire life in a wheelchair despite her dream. She longed to see space, but I knew it would never happen. She longed to know how it all worked, but I couldn't tell her. I was an artist by profession; such technical things escaped me. I wished I could do better by her, but at times like these, I felt like a failure as a parent.
I sighed as I pushed myself up off the sofa and went upstairs to tuck her in. The house had been my husband's, dead of a car crash when Susan was only two. She didn't remember him. To her, it had always just been the two of us and Nurse Abigaile, the woman from the hospital who took care of her medical and physical therapy needs. She had a room of her own at the house and stayed there during the week for convenience. It was Saturday night, though, and the house was empty save for a child and her widowed mother. It really was too big. Its long halls were impossible to keep heated and funneled drafts throughout the building, and it had twice as many bedrooms as we had uses for, even with a studio, a show-room and an office. The biggest taker of space, however, was the ballroom. Yes, a ballroom. We had no conceivable use for it. When Susan was first conceived, my husband, an architect, dreamed of a grand playroom just for her, but when we discovered her condition, we realized it wouldn't have worked out.
I made my way up to the second floor and down the hall to Susan's room, decorated with glowing planets and plastic stars, charts of space and planetary mobiles. I smiled from the doorway as I watched her form, apparently already asleep. She was a beautiful child, long hair thick as honey and smooth, creamy skin. She was intelligent and sharp-witted, caring and compassionate. Any parent would be crazy not to want a child like her. I felt like I didn't deserve her.
She turned her head toward me as I came over to the side of her bed. “Mommy?” she asked sweetly, and I could tell she had been thinking of something heavy.
“Yes, sweetie?” I asked as I stroked some hair back out of her face.
“You can draw anything, can't you?”
I smiled at that, though I hoped the light was dim enough that she couldn't see the sadness in it. “Just about,” I agreed, thinking of all the exceptions that I wish I could.
“Could you draw me into space?”
I had mumbled some half promise in reply and bid her sleep, but her question hung with me throughout the next day. It was such a simple request, but so impossible to fulfill. It haunted my daily thoughts, to the degree that when I was working on the finer details of a painting of Abraham Lincoln I had hoped to dedicate to the school, I found myself drawing Mars into the poor man's ear lobe. I couldn't shake it from my thoughts. My daughter had called upon the one gift I had, but how could I keep even that from letting her down?
I called Abigaile that night before I went to bed and asked a favor of her. I asked if she could stay over all day, every day, for the next week, so I could work on a particularly large project, though I couldn't tell her the details for fear of a leak. Thankfully, she agreed, and the next day, I set out on my goal in the ballroom, drawing sketches for location plans, design schematics, paint ideas. It was by far the biggest project I had ever undertaken. I came out only for breakfast, dinner and bed, and often would have forgotten all three were it not for Abigaile coming to remind me, though respectfully, she never came inside.
When it looked like the project would carry over another week, however, Abigaile became worried. Susan had already gone to bed and the two of us were sitting in the living room drinking an evening chamomile when she brought it up.
“It's not good for Susan for you to wall yourself out of her life for long periods,” she told me. “I understand you have to take work where you can get it, but no amount of money can make up for that much time avoiding your daughter.”
I couldn't help but give a little laugh, which earned a funny look. “Abigaile, I'm not doing this for money.”
“For charity, then?” the nurse asked, confused. “I know you're fond of them, but still, such time away ...”
I had to cut her short, shaking my head. “It's not for charity, either.” I lowered my voice before finishing, “It's for Susan. She asked me to fulfill her dream without knowing what that would entail, but I promised her, so I'm going to do it.”
And so I did. It took another week before I got it all done, as well as a small fortune for the materials, but as I stepped back and admired it, I thought it my best work of all. It had also been by far my longest, but it was finally time to unveil it for my client.
Susan always loved getting the first glimpse at my finished projects. She was my first critique and after two weeks without her mother, she was particularly eager to see what had kept me away for so long. Still, after all of my work that she's seen, I'd like to think I took her breath away this time.
It wasn't the ballroom she entered when she passed through the door, but the Sea of Tranquility on the lunar surface, famous for being the Apollo 11 landing site and one of the vastest meres on the moon. Behind her glowed the sun in its brilliance and, even more grandly, the blues and greens of the Earth hovered behind and above her, with Venus and Mercury visible between the two. Ahead of her was Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto, all portrayed to perspective scale and design, precisely as one would see it were they truly on the surface. While the floor was replaced with the rough granite coated in fine gray sand that represented the moon, the walls were replaced with black velvet, dotted with holes that were perfect representations of every single visible star. When I shut the door behind us, the illusion was perfect. We were on the moon, standing in the mere staring out at Mars, a view only the rocket from two weeks ago would be able to beat.
I wanted to ask what she thought, but I remained silent, not wanting to interrupt her reverie until I heard her crying. I hurried over and knelt beside her, asking her what was wrong.
“Nothing,” she told me, still crying. “Nothing's wrong. It's a dream come true. We're on the moon. We're in space. You drew me into space! You really did it! You really can draw anything.”
I smiled, much like I had the first time I heard those words, but more happily now as I embraced her. “Yeah, honey. For you, yeah, I can.”
