Celebrating a creative mother and sportsman father

  • By Bruce Stambaugh
  • May 6, 2013
  • 317
                        
Summary Bruce Stambaugh shares about. Bruce Stambaugh writes about nature, weather, hobbies and people, often using personal experiences. Much to their dismay, he also writes about his family. He uses humor and pathos when he can’t think of anything else to include. For May 13, 2013 When I was asked to give a talk to volunteers at a local retirement community on April 23, I didn’t hesitate. My mother had died on that day at the nursing home last year. I thought the opportunity more than appropriate to share about how much the volunteers meant to residents like my mother. After all, some in the audience likely delivered needed and appreciated services for my both my mother and father as they finished out their lives at Walnut Hills. My assignment was to show some of the many photographs I had taken over the years around Holmes County. I offered to include some shots of other places in the world where I had traveled. The organizer said just Holmes County scenes would be fine. That would be no problem at all. I had thousands of shots from every season from around our bucolic countryside. In some cases, I had photos of the same scene in different seasons, and sometimes from multiple views. I thought that would serve my purpose very well. My aim was to honor my loving mother and gregarious father, not to hype my photographic abilities. Dad had taught my siblings and me to appreciate our environment, to respect nature, and to understand the careful balance between harvesting her resources and preserving the earth’s beauty. Hunting and fishing, along with conservation, had been priorities in his life, especially in his retirement years. Mom, on the other hand, was more reserved but equally adamant about appreciating and sharing nature. She just chose a different venue. Mom skillfully captured her love for God’s good earth on canvas. Mom painted hundreds of landscapes from all around the country, mostly in vivid watercolors. She skillfully replicated scenery as she saw it, and if you were familiar with geography, you could often identify the location of the setting. Mom was that good. Ironically, none of her five children caught the artist’s gene or desire. Mom once patiently tried to teach me to paint. But given my poor efforts, she wisely encouraged me to “paint” with my camera and through my writing. It was sage advice. Mom taught me to have her artist’s eye by understanding perspective and composition through the camera’s lens rather than smearing colors on a canvas. Believe me, smearing was the appropriate verb for my practice runs at watercolors. On April 23, I complied with the organizer’s wishes. Only three of the 170 shots I shared on screen with the volunteers were from outside the county. To set the tone, the first slide was a picture of Dad and Mom at their 65th wedding anniversary gathering. Though Mom and Dad were the only humans shown in my photo presentation that day, I asked those in attendance if they had seen themselves in the slides. Not surprisingly, I got looks of bewilderment. I told the volunteers gathered that they were the forests and the lilies of the fields, the sparkling brooks and crimson trees in the lives of those at Walnut Hills. Because of their individual situations, the residents may not be able to express their appreciation for the little things the volunteers did. But speaking from personal experience, they do. I am certain I am not alone in my gratitude to them for all their good efforts. I also wanted them know how much my folks had blessed me with a rich and rewarding appreciation for the Creation in which we live. To read more The Rural View, visit Bruce Stambaugh at www.holmesbargainhunter.com.


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