The Lives You Touched-12 prints from 2016.

Tricia Lane-Forster, Artist Statement with list of prints.

       In early March of 2015 my dad, Dennis Lane, collapsed in my parent’s driveway in a snowstorm after going up to get the newspaper.  He had been walking downhill and landed on the asphalt on his face, breaking his glasses and fracturing his cheekbones.  He came to and crawled about 50 feet to the house.  My mom called 911 and he was taken to Sinai Hospital where it was determined his heart had stopped and restarted.  The doctors put in a pacemaker on March 3^rd, 2015 and figured that would solve the problem.  His condition became a lot more complicated over the following months.  A year later, on March 3^rd, 2016, we held his funeral and he was buried in Long Green, Maryland.  He was 72 years old and died on February 29^th—leap year—which is such a strange day to die on because then the anniversary of your death only falls every 4 years.  My dad was an Optimist and had a powerful spirit, so it seems like maybe he wouldn’t want us to be sad every year so he left us on this particular day.

              I started this series of prints in January of 2016 as a way to pass the late evening hours after putting my 6 year old son to bed.  I didn’t know they would become a series, that I would set a goal for one print a month, until later.  I just knew that I need to express what I was feeling and what my family was going through.  In January, things were settling into place.  My mom had moved into an apartment at Oak Crest, my dad had been in the rehab center there since mid-December, 2015, and I was working on setting up the final steps to list their home of 41 years on the market.  We had help from neighbors, dear family friends, family from Colorado, and hired a few people to help pack up.  There had been a yard sale, countless trips to Good Will, sales on Craig’s List, appeals to friends on Facebook to buy or take furniture, but in January the house was empty and the interior was painted entirely in a warm creamy light beige color.  My dad, now on a feeding tube, was holding strong, trying to gain weight, trying to be well enough to join my mom in the apartment. 

              When I was cleaning out my parent’s house, I found hundreds of linocut prints that I had made in high school and in college.  My dad had been amazed at the amount of artwork I found stuffed under beds and in bins since I hadn’t lived there in years.  He said to me one day in the fall of 2015 when I was getting ready to take some of my old art over to my friend Mike’s mom’s house, “I had no idea you had made this much art and it is good!  You should really have a show or a studio or something.” 

              I studied fibers (textiles) in college and over the years most of my art has been printed, embroidered, or painted on fabric.  When I started these prints, I had found some old 12” by 12” plates, and the medium suited my cluttered, studio free lifestyle.  I printed in my kitchen after moving my son’s toys to the floor and wiping crumbs off the counter, putting everything away before going to bed.  Carving the printing plates was like returning home to a place of ease.  It seemed like the right way to document these experiences.  The square format reminded me of the thousands of slides we had found in my parent’s basement.  I carved the number 5 into the first printing plate.  Five is my favorite number aesthetically, but it became a representation of the month of May, 2015 in this series.

This series of prints is for my dad and I want to share this story for him.  

“Not sure where to turn,” May, 2016 (January)

In January of 2016, I felt hopeless.  I felt that the hospitals and doctors had let us down.  We had been to almost all of the hospitals in town.  My dad had a feeding tube put in at St. Joseph’s on January 11^th.  I had had great hope, especially in Hopkins and had been so grateful that we lived close to so many good hospitals.  Sometimes there is nothing that can be done.  I felt the weight of running in circles with fleeting hope.  My dad, meanwhile, was still fighting so hard and his bright spirit was carrying him.  We later learned that the nurses and aides at the rehab unit at Oak Crest referred to my dad as “the boy” because of his kindness and Optimism.  He seemed so young to them in comparison to the other patients.

“Late,” April, 2016 (February)

Prince died the month I carved this plate, so I decided to print in purple.  Often times, throughout 2015 and leading up to my dad’s death, I felt that we were too late to reach the doctor, the hospital, the diagnosis, the treatment.  It was as if we were running a race with my dad's disease and just couldn’t catch up.  The rabbit represents a ceramic music box of the rabbit from Alice in Wonderland that my aunt had made for me when I was a baby, one of the many things I took home from my parent’s house.  My mom would always sing, “I’m late!  I’m late for a very important date,” before winding it up for me.  I remembering laughing and feeling anxious at the same time.  The shapes at the top represent the many trophies and plaques we took down off my dad’s office walls and packed away.  They’re in my basement now.  I called the trophy shop and they don’t reuse or recycle them.  They suggested Good Will, but it seemed weird to take them there.

“An Unmooring,” March, 2016 (March)

My dad’s funeral was on March 3^rd, 2016.  This print represents two events.  The first was when my husband, son and I took down my parent’s birdfeeders, yanking them from the frozen winter ground, one of the last steps to prepare the house for sale.  My dad had always asked my son Jin to help him fill the birdfeeders when we came to visit.  It felt like we were pulling out the anchors of a ship (my childhood home) and there was a lightness and heaviness in my heart at the same time.  The second is one of the last conversations I had with my dad, who remained very present and aware until his death.  His disease had progressed to where he could no longer swallow, his mouth and lips were terribly dry, and he would cough to ease his discomfort.  He was describing how he felt inside, “If I could just break through this wall inside, I would feel so much better.”  In this print, the wall has been broken, representing his death and peace.

“Some days it felt as if a tree held us together, even though everything was falling apart.”  February, 2016 (April)

In April of 2015, I took my son out to my parent’s house in Sweet Air almost every weekend to visit with them.  We often played together under an oak tree in my parent’s front yard.  Later, I bought a disk swing and hung it on the tree for Jin to swing on while I worked on the house.  My dad would sit under the tree in a lawn chair keeping Jin company while resting in the shade.  My uncles from Colorado pushed Jin on the swing for hours when they were visiting to help my dad in the summer.  The tree became a place of peace and fun.  A dear family friend and old neighbor died that April and my parents and I went to the viewing to offer support to his family and to his daughter, one of my best childhood friends.  I learned that another close friend’s father was diagnosed with brain cancer.  There was a sadness that April, but springtime has a way of helping you move forward. 

I carved this printing plate during February of 2016.  My dad was dying and had decided to go into hospice care.  My parents signed off on their house on Valentine’s Day.  I was thinking back to times of peace and togetherness in Sweet Air.

“The days are passing by without a clear direction.”  January, 2016 (May)

My dad spent a large part of the month of May, 2015, in hospitals after a fall, swelling legs, and Bell’s Palsy on the left side of his face (which at first seemed like a sign of stroke).  First he was at GBMC, where the doctors diagnosed the Bell’s Palsy and determined something was going on with his heart.  He was transferred to Sinai, where his heart doctors were.  They argued with neurologists over the next few days in front of us, “No, it’s the heart, “No, it’s the brain,” until we felt for sure that they were stumped.  One of the techs, seeing our frustration, said while checking my dad’s vitals, “Dennis is a soldier.  This is rough, but I can see his strength.  He’ll fight this.  He’s a soldier.”  Her words have stayed with me.  My dad called a friend from his Optimist Club who is a pathologist at Hopkins and asked, “What do you do when the doctors don’t know what’s wrong with you?”  He was moved to Johns Hopkins and was diagnosed with Cardiac Amyloidosis, a rare disease where abnormal proteins build up in the heart.  The treatment is chemotherapy.  My dad was relieved to have a diagnosis.  I was worried and was feeling like I was being torn in a thousand different directions.  All of the visits to the hospitals, often with my son in tow, there to offer love and support to my parents, was wearing me down.  I longed to be safe at home and I longed for my dad to be able to be in his home with my mom, but my dad was just at the beginning of a battle against this strange disease that we were just learning about.

“It rained on the parade, so we had our own while the birds waited to be fed.” June, 2016 (June)

In June of 2015, the Greater Jacksonville Optimist Club’s Annual Independence Day Bike and Pet Parade (one of my dad’s projects for over twenty years) was cancelled due to rain and would never be held again.  My son Jin had won a medal for “Most Patriotic Decorations” in 2014 and greatly admired my dad.  He still talks to people about his granddad who “used to run a great parade that doesn’t happen anymore because he died.”

That June, Jin had wanted to have a big “Coming Home from the Hospital Celebration” for my dad and he picked out all kinds of sparkly red, white and blue decorations.  Jin’s bike was still decorated, so we all went up to the court in front of my parent’s house and had a four person parade with my dad as the leader.  We didn’t feed the birds that day because my dad was tired after the parade.

“Like a metronome, to keep the beat.”  July, 2016 (July)

My son knew about my dad’s pacemaker and had lots of questions always.  He also had great hope in “the machine that keeps Grandpa’s heart going.”  He would ask repeatedly how it worked and I really wasn’t sure.  Sometimes we answer questions as best as we can with comparisons that may or may not be right.  I told Jin it was like a metronome, a tool used by musicians to keep the beat, but it instead keeps the beat of the heart steady when it wants to stop beating.  The answer sufficed, but questions like this continued always.  Jin’s faith in and respect for doctors and hospitals greatly diminished during this time.  I often doubted if taking Jin with me to visit my dad was the right thing to do, but he always wanted to go and was always curious about what was going on.  When we told him that my dad had died, he urged us to take him to see Grandpa so that he could try to fix him since the doctors couldn’t.  It was heartbreaking.  They had been instant pals the day we brought Jin home from China in 2012.

“The first time I saw you feel defeated, you were resting in the shade of the trees you planted,” August, 2016 (August)

On July 30^th, 2015, Jin and I picked up my Aunt Irene from the airport, who had come from Colorado to help my parents.  Early the next morning, my mom collapsed and was taken to GBMC with pneumonia and dehydration.  She was extremely unconditioned and would remain in rehab for the next 60 days, first at GBMC, then at the Masonic Home in Hunt Valley.  Over the next two weeks, my Aunt Irene had difficult conversations with my dad that I had tried to have without success.  She convinced him to visit Oak Crest and to recognize that my parents could not safely live in their home in the country any longer.  He was angry and defiant when we toured Oak Crest.  He complained about the cost and the size of the apartments, but Irene had gotten through to him in a way only a sister can.  The process of moving out and selling the house seemed impossible to him while still going through chemotherapy treatments for his amyloidosis and while visiting my mom in rehab units.  My mom was angry and scared and wanted to go home.  We had to make big decisions about moving without her.  My aunt left and my Uncle George came next.  I was sitting with my dad under the oak tree in the shade that August and he said, “How are we going to do this Tricia?  I feel so lost.”  It was the first time ever that my dad’s Optimism was not there.  He was feeling hopeless and I told him that I would help, but I still think he couldn’t see how it would happen.  Later, he was in rehab as the last steps were happening.  I would keep him up to date on the latest progress.  He was always amazed that we got it done.

“What to save, what to part with,” September, 2016 (September)

During September of 2015, I was frantically trying to organize my parent’s home of 41 years to prepare for their upcoming move to Oak Crest.  My childhood friend, Gretchen, started to help too (and amazingly continued to help through December).  I could not have done it without her help.  My mom was still in rehab, my dad was still receiving chemotherapy treatments at Hopkins, and neither really wanted to move out of their home.  There was so much stuff!  This print is about deciding what to keep and what to give away or to sell.  It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do in my life as I felt on top of everything going on with their health, I was dismantling my parent’s home.  During this time, Jin and I stayed with my dad, so that he was not alone.

“Things seemed to be falling into place, but we failed to grasp them,” October, 2016 (October)

By October, my mom had come home and was stronger physically than she had been in a long time after 60 days in PT/OT in rehab, but emotionally she was distressed with everything that was going on with her house.  She was having a very hard time parting with anything.  Gretchen continued to help during the days with meal preparation as my dad was on a low salt, low liquid diet and neither of my parents were keen on the new diet.  Decisions were being made about Oak Crest, meetings with a realtor were happening, my dad’s doctor’s appointments continued, and we were all sort of floating along, emotionally detached from the changes that were coming.

“We frantically searched for homes for the houseplants,” November, 2016 (November)

One of the last things to go were the many houseplants in my parent’s house.  Some my mom planned to take to the apartment, others were too large.  For some reason, I guess because they were alive, I was trying to find homes for the plants as if they were refugees.  Many new friends from the school where I had just started teaching at the year before, volunteered to take some and some were taken to our school’s greenhouse, while others were given away for free at our yard sale.  It’s funny.  Every now and then a coworker will give me a report on how the plant they “adopted” is doing and I can see plants from my parent’s house every day at school in the lobby and break room.

“The lives you touched,” December, 2016 (December)

In December of 2015, the week of my 40^th birthday, my dad was struggling with swallowing so much that he decided he needed to go to the hospital.  I told him he needed to go to Hopkins because that was where his amyloidosis doctors were and that is where they could help.  He asked a dear friend to drive him and my mom to the ER at Johns Hopkins.  My parents called me at work before they left.  Gretchen was with them.  That was the last day my dad ever saw their home.  I often think about that.  Did he know that he would never be coming back?  Did he regret not taking it all in one last time? 

This print is the last in the series and in it I tried to express how many lives my dad touched as an educator, a neighbor, a friend, a member of the Optimist Club, a volunteer, a son. a brother, a husband of 47 years, a father, and as a grandfather.  My mom and I continue to run into people who knew him and who have stories about him.  They often smile when they recall the memory they share with us.  His life was well lived in so many ways.  Hopefully, the lives he touched will continue to touch other lives in the same positive way.  This is my hope.

Another hope that I have in sharing these prints and this story, is that someone going through a similar battle will find a sense of peace in knowing they are not alone.

 

Influences:  Cyril Power, Sybil Andrews and Virginia Lee Burton