The Lion Painting
Thanks, Grandma and Grandpa
It hung in the second bedroom of my grandparents’ house. That’s where I would sleep when I visited. There were two twin beds against the wall in there, and Grandma would put a chair next to my bed, apparently to protect me from falling onto the floor if I rolled the wrong way. Very sweet — but unnecessary, since I had somehow managed to remain uninjured in the many years of sleeping in my own bed at home. But it was just one of her many sweet ways of protecting and loving me.
Then I’d stare at that lion painting on the wall opposite my bed, even after I was supposed to be sleeping. It was always illuminated by a little nightlight in the room, and I was transfixed.
Grandma outlived Grandpa by about 30 years. They were awesome together — high school sweethearts — married 50+ years when Grandpa died. I only knew them to live in that house. So when Grandma moved to assisted living (at 98 — 4 years before she died), we all came to collect what we wanted of their belongings. And all I wanted was that lion painting. No arguments there, since nobody else cared much about it.
My grandfather was an interesting bloke, as far as I remember. Being a bratty and self-absorbed teenager when he died, I never got a chance to know him as a person — a man with real talents and thoughts and dreams. I suspect he…
