Joy's Gratitude Exercise

1. Today I am so grateful for “Fatty McAbby,” and her smiling, chubby, kissable cheeks!

Throughout the years I have had many art classes with Rachel. She was the only person in the entire Mountain Home public school system that was messier than I. We would sit together and between the two of us, our art supplies would be strewn across our table, the entire side of the classroom actually. Disgruntled comments would be thrown towards us in passing after my blue paint (or her orange paint) had accidentally smudged someone else’s art piece. We actually had a teacher in Jr. High that would ask us to start cleaning up ten minutes before the rest of the class. That we shared in common, which is probably why I always found the safest seat to next to Rachel. Yet this is where are artistic similarities usually ended. At that age I could imitate my surroundings easily on paper, but that is where my creativity usually fizzled. With years of academic art instruction I had lost the ability to freely self-express from my soul, to abstractly bring colors and brushstrokes haphazardly to the page, to paint trees purple and the sky a bright orange. I was always envious of how Rachel still would, despite the realist drawing exercises and design instructions. She would make the assignment her own, and because of that very early self-awareness, her art was always so stylized, so bold, so Rachel. And she did that with everything in her life. She was always so authentic and daringly herself. She had this silky long blond hair that hung past her waist. She twirled it up off her shoulders, secured with colored pencils to get it out of her face and workspace. I don’t remember her ever walking; she just seemed to flow from place to place, smiling at you so gently with those huge kind eyes. She was so naturally beautiful and artsy and graceful and loving. Her presence was calming and at the same time awakening. I am sad that I lost touch with her over the years. I am devastated that I only now have updates on her life through the updates of her baby’s health. I hurt for her and I laugh with her through the stories her children. As a mother with those huge kind, accepting, hopeful eyes, Rachel has once again inspired me!


“I have blessedly little to update you all on. Abby is eating constantly, and feels so pleasantly heavy. I have begun calling her Fatty McAbby. Michael says that she is going to get a complex. I can't think of another word besides "Fatty" that I would want to use to describe her. There is not much worse than a steadily shrinking child. So I call her fat with all of my motherly pride behind it. –Rachel”

As long as you are her mother, she will NEVER have a complex!

This is a link to Abby's story (for those of you who know Rachel):
http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/abigailgracesteer

This link is hilarious! It is obvious that she has created the same calming and accepting atmosphere for her children, given them the closest seat to her creative energy and compassionate nature. She gives all of credit to god that her child is at the moment so healthy. I think it has to do with her bedside manner, just being Rachel! Watch this family laugh together through an illness whose seriousness would have most unable to breath.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugYPoLO0lgs