A Portrait of My Dead Mother-in-Law

And this is a portrait

Of my dead mother-in-law

She had it done right before she died

Literally, minutes before

That’s why she only looks half-alive in it

The painter managed to get the eyes and the nose done

Before she expired

But she was already dead for a few hours

By the time he finished the rest of her

So she has this weird in-and-out thing going on

That I find really artistically interesting

My mother-in-law was a very

Neither here nor there kind of woman

Very whatever you say

Very so-this-and-that

I don’t know

I don’t know what to make of her

I never actually met her

She died young

Very young

My husband was only one

He was playing on the floor of his mother’s bedroom

As the artist painted

Rolling a toy truck

Back and forth

Along the grooves in the wood

The only thing he has of her

Is this portrait

And stories people tell him

Imagine having to build your mother

With nothing but stories

And a half-alive portrait

Just a half-built boy

With only his father’s side

To give him history

And his father wasn’t much help

In that area

He was a man who sat in a chair

And waited for life

To decide something for him

And then one day

Life decided a heart attack

And he was gone

My husband was nineteen

Away at college

He came home

Took the portrait of his mother

Out of the attic

And left everything else where it was

Two days later a fire

Took the whole house

And everything in it

Into the air

Things happen

Tragedies

Accidents

A woman sits up in her deathbed

Wondering why she’s so sick

But so young

With a child

And so much she has to do

She forces herself to keep her eyes open

So that at least she’ll look alert

In the portrait

So that her son can see the blue specks

In the brown circles

And the suggestion

That maybe things need to be done

Questions need to be asked

A child should try to hang onto

His curiosity

And battle against things inside him

His inheritance

That can get passed down

Without him even realizing it

This is the portrait of my mother-in-law

I’m having my own done

Next week

And there’s a tickle in my throat

Funny, isn’t it?

The way she looks I mean

That half-and-half sense

Of here and gone

It’s like she’s trying to say something

Don’t you think?

Last words

Or a warning

But to who?

And about what?

Oh well

The thing about art

Is that you have to bring yourself to it

It so rarely

Comes to you