Art: Untitled by Guilherme Bergamini
STILL. LIFE.
Oil on Canvas
Mother and son: ages 64 and 37.
The mother is a guidance counselor at Mount Hebron Middle School and the son is a software engineer out in Sussex county; the mother is just over 5 feet with thinning gray hair that frames her face and the son has a dense black beard and a tall forehead. There is little physical resemblance between them.
The son’s father, the mother’s husband, passed away a year ago. Both the mother and son exist in a timeless realm where it is always a year since his passing.
His death was expected; he’d taken countless trips to Memorial Sloane Kettering Cancer Center in the previous year.
The funeral came the day after Yom Kippur. It was private—only seven attendees including a rabbi. The mother threw a devotional shovelful of dirt onto her husband’s casket, and then the son did as well.
The son moved back in with his mother 9 months after his father’s passing to support her. Her attendance and capability at work had slipped, leaving her caseload of students at a disadvantage.
The son cooks for his mother and spends his weekends with her. He was once married and is in no rush to find romantic companionship.
They sit on folding chairs in their front yard and watch strangers pass by.
Together, they grieve for eternity.