How Sculpture Crafted My Family

Just as one can be drawn to another in an electric way, a piece of sculpture had that same effect on me. It was African modern consisting of a father, mother and child in a circle of dance. Tall and sturdy, the stone thousands of years old in a palette colored mustard, cumin, black, white and gray.

Though pricey, I had to have it. I collected large, abstract paintings. This was my first sculpture.

When art speaks to you then you need to answer its call. The piece represented what I wanted most: my own family. I wanted to fall in love with a wonderful man and have his children. Together, I would create a new family.

My other relatives, the ones I grew up with, had mostly died. My brother had passed years before by his own hand. Then my mother and my aunt died suddenly of heart attacks on the same day in different states, just hours a part. About a month and a half later my uncle died of a stroke. Then my sister was in the hospital with a large tumor for three weeks. A little more than a month later my stepfather died of a degenerative lung disease.

I was alone.

It took about a year’s worth of grief therapy to overcome my losses (I had also fallen out of love with a man I thought I would marry, lost my apartment along the water and lost my job through a takeover.).

Lost became my unwanted mantra.

I decided to do what at the age of 20 I had predicted I one day would — live in San Francisco and fall in love with a man with a young son. I don’t know why I saw my future that way but that was my big picture.

It was time to take my own snapshots. I flew to San Francisco, stayed with a friend, toured Sonoma and that is when I came into contact with the sculpture. I bought it, brought it on the plane home with me and held it like I would a child, carefully and protectively. My cats were my only companions as I later left Florida and drove across the country.

I displayed the sculpture prominently on my favorite modern side table in my new apartment.

Within a couple of years I met John, fell hard. He had a five-year old son, Jay, with whom I instantly bonded. We got married, bought a house; I got pregnant, miscarried, got pregnant again and had a baby, all in a little over a year.

As time passed, Mimi, the daughter we had, started breaking things. She broke that sculpture and it was easily fixed. About four and a half months ago, she broke it again. I brought it in to the gallery so it could be made whole. I was assured that this would be an easy job that would take no more than an hour. I felt I was leaving it in safe hands; The hands from which I originally bought it.

Month after month passed and still it was not ready. There was a warehouse move. The head restorer went to Mexico, didn’t return and there was wonder if he ever would. All along the people who worked there kept trying to interest me in exchanging my sculpture for another.

“Perhaps you would like something else?”

No. This piece was irreplaceable.

That sculpture represented all that I wanted in life. And now had. It helped make my dreams come true.

Finally, early this week I received a call that my piece was ready!!!! I brought Mimi with me to the gallery. My beloved sculpture was swaddled in bubble wrap. Gallery employees had previously said they were not going to charge me and I would also be given a free gift certificate. That seemed fair in exchange for such a long wait. But now they were saying that it took two hours to fix and would cost double. . .

I was not charged, given a $100 gift certificate and my sculpture.

I am of the religious order called McDonaldists. We are of the conviction that one must always check her bags before leaving any establishment thus ensuring your order is always correct. I asked if they would mind if I looked at the sculpture first. Not at all. As I unfurled the bulky bubble wrap, Mimi popping bubbles as I went, the layers of plastic became thinner and thinner until the sculpture was revealed.

It was not mine.

I knew something was off when the manager handed me the well-wrapped piece. It seemed smaller, lighter. It didn’t feel electric.

I turned and watched my delightful daughter ask for yet another of their free children’s sculpture necklaces. I observed her and as I did I saw beauty, potential, strength, sweetness, light. She was mine. My baby.

It was in this very store where I was first drawn to a piece of sculpture that helped me dream of the possibility of having her.

Now I didn’t know if my sculpture still lay in broken pieces of four. Or was standing upright, shining, whole and joyful. I never got mad. Didn’t lose my cool. I remained Zen. I asked that they look through their warehouse and call me if they found it.

I suppose the sculpture is lost. Chances are I may never see it again. Perhaps I’m not meant to — or I no longer have the need. I have my husband, son and daughter.

My family is my living sculpture.