My mornings with Clare

Every Monday and Friday morning at 7:00 am PST a miracle happens. I meet with Clare in Boston via our telephones and facetime. She is ready to paint and her paint box is open, her jar of water is full and her paintbrush is in her hand. She selects her color, loads up the paint, I turn on some music and we say, “one, two, three, go!”. Clare pushes the paint on the paper with a panache that is confident and free. I liken her paintings to Helen Frankenthaler. Clare has never painted before these sessions but her paintings are exquisite works of art. She is delighted by the power of her marks on the paper. They are not just any marks. You see, the swirls, dots, lines, and smudges, are Clare’s thoughts. The connection of her brain through her paintbrush. My dear friend is going through the painful journey of Alzheimer’s Disease and the power of expressing her thoughts onto paper is a miracle. She has lost the connection of speaking the words she wants to say but we have discovered that she can translate her thoughts onto the paper. She loves to point out specific parts of her painting to say that it is a particular important thought. Just today she pointed at a very light swirl with a wash of blue underneath and said, “I want to show you this”. She got up from the table and her caregiver, M, follows Clare quickly with the phone camera to the dining room. Clare picks up a catalog and shows me the chocolate she is buying for her family for Christmas. You see, she paints her conversations to me on the paper. Today was a breakthrough as she could quickly give me evidence of painting words and complete our conversation. Clare is my miracle. She is a delightful person and very brave. She keeps going. That’s Clare.