When Van Gogh and Gauguin painted their now famous empty chairs, they weren’t just painting still-lifes. They were painting portraits. Portraits of who sat in those chairs. The conversations had. The lives lived.

At first glance, the unwilling eye might see an empty chair at an odd angle. The eye unwilling to look beyond the very simple things taught and told. They eye stuck in the “well it has to look this way to be right.” But the forgiving eye. The open eye. The compassionate eye will not just see, but feel the colors. How one color helps pop the other. How one life helps the other live. At every angle.

Our relationships change and grow through the years. Our eyes and hearts have to be able to see things from a different angle. We will be asked to see impossible things. Live through impossible things. And still, somehow, we will be asked to find the beauty. The beauty of the lives that change our ordinary into extraordinary. Every turn. Every angle. Perspective.