In the beginning, I had so few, I could remember everyone’s favorite. She liked the heart, my mom’s friend, Carol. It read, “Sometimes, someone says something really small and it fits into that tiny space in your heart, and fills it.” 

She came to the studio yesterday to pick up her painting. Seeing the new ones, she said, “Oh, I like this woman, but I love her,” pointing to the one that I wonder, perhaps, looked most like her. I hope so. 

Turning to looking at the large canvas, she asked if this was Margaux. I smiled because it was the second time that day, with two different images, that people wondered if the painting was of Margaux. I smiled because I could hear my mother’s voice when people would say, “Oh, that’s so me,” and my mother would reply, “Well, actually…it’s about me.” I smiled because people could see themselves. I smiled because Margaux was coming to life everywhere. I smiled because, holding her painting, her father, she said, “It’s so special.” Those tiny little words fit directly into the space of my heart that needed to be filled, the space that my brain still thinks, oh, that’s Carol’s space — which will always make me smile. 

Heart full, I was, I am, a part of it all, and I am home.