I turned 19. I was trying to decide what to do with my life. I wanted to be an artist. My mother wanted me to be a nurse because I couldn’t support myself as an artist, I wasn’t good enough according to her. I became a nurse and worked as a nurse until 2006, I took care of with people affected by HIV/AIDS although early on we knew it as GRID. I spent time in ICUs and ERs, on geriatric wards, in orthopedics and rehab, and in oncology. I helped people live and sometimes I helped them when they were dying. I married, I had two lovely children. My husband and I will be married 30 years on this Valentine’s Day (2017). In 2007 I lit a torch for the first time and fell love with melting glass. My husband encouraged me to follow my dreams. Today, Feb 2, 2017, I make my living as a glass artist. My mother was wrong about me but I don’t regret my time as a nurse. I learned so much about people and about life. I learned about determination from a man who climbed through a ground floor window at a hospital were I worked that I had unlocked so that he could say good-bye to his lover because that man’s family had barred him from the room. I saw the love in the eyes of a child dying with a stomach tumor in ICU at the age of 7 and telling her mother, “It’s alright mama, I can see gramma again.” I saw love and hate, good and evil, pain and recovery, and the remarkable abilities of the human spirit. Those years were a gift few get to experience. If I could go back to that day I’d tell the girl that was me that it’s OK, she will get to be an artist – she just needs to do a few things first.
Thursday, August 16, 1979
The day i was born.
I turned 19. I was trying to decide what to do with my life. I wanted to be an artist. My mother wanted me to be a nurse because I couldn’t support myself as an artist, I wasn’t good enough according to her. I became a nurse and worked as a nurse until 2006, I took care of with people affected by HIV/AIDS although early on we knew it as GRID. I spent time in ICUs and ERs, on geriatric wards, in orthopedics and rehab, and in oncology. I helped people live and sometimes I helped them when they were dying. I married, I had two lovely children. My husband and I will be married 30 years on this Valentine’s Day (2017). In 2007 I lit a torch for the first time and fell love with melting glass. My husband encouraged me to follow my dreams. Today, Feb 2, 2017, I make my living as a glass artist. My mother was wrong about me but I don’t regret my time as a nurse. I learned so much about people and about life. I learned about determination from a man who climbed through a ground floor window at a hospital were I worked that I had unlocked so that he could say good-bye to his lover because that man’s family had barred him from the room. I saw the love in the eyes of a child dying with a stomach tumor in ICU at the age of 7 and telling her mother, “It’s alright mama, I can see gramma again.” I saw love and hate, good and evil, pain and recovery, and the remarkable abilities of the human spirit. Those years were a gift few get to experience. If I could go back to that day I’d tell the girl that was me that it’s OK, she will get to be an artist – she just needs to do a few things first.
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