Vivian - a snapshot from 1955

Vivian was Mom’s best friend before marriage and children.  When I first met her she was permanently bedridden, living in a room with her mother who was suffering from Parkinson’s disease. 

 

While walking to Mt Tabor one Saturday we stopped at SE 30^th and Stark at a place called Laurelhurst Village.  “I’ve been here before” I said to Kevan. 

 

It’s been fifty years but the building looks eerily the same. In the sixties Mom brought us (me and my siblings) here many times but I never knew where it was until now.   Memories of those hallways came rushing back - the sights and smell of nursing homes leave lasting impressions.

      

She was too young for this place I remember thinking.  Propped upright in bed Vivian had thick dark hair, dark eyes and beautiful olive skin.  She had a "weight" lying across her arms to help keep them still - but it didn't stop her wit or humor.  She spoke fast - rattling though sentences at the speed of sound and everything was funny.  She slowed only to translate her mother's inaudible speech - it was her way of including her in the conversation.  She had remarkable kindness warmth and dignity and staff and visitors alike loved hanging in this room.  It was no doubt a welcome distraction from the hallways outside.

They met in the “Secretary pool” at The Benjamin Franklin in the mid-1950s.  Mom was new to Portland, living with her brother and his family.  Vivian helped transition her to working and living in this beautiful city.  She was her first friend outside Cincinnati.  First jobs can produce lasting friendships - a dynamic that resonates with every generation.

Newly married, Vivian was in her early thirties when diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. Her husband left her shortly after - Mom neglected to share this detail when we were young.  I often wondered what powered Mom to drag four kids five years apart, across town to a nursing home. That trip had to be painful - we were hell in a station wagon or so I've heard. Then again this was the woman who perused photography studios in search of unwanted film canisters - to mail cookies to her nephew in Vietnam.  My sweet "nutty" Mom was really made of steel and Vivian was her friend.

After moving to Bend in 1971 only my sisters joined Mom to see Vivian.  Trips to Portland became jammed with errands and obligations AND their visits (with Vivian) were either shortened or compromised.  I remember hearing that Vivian’s health began to decline after her mother died. I honestly don’t remember much after that.  I migrated into my narcissistic high school/college years and drifted away.

   

Thumbing through one of Mom’s scrapbooks recently I spotted an innocuous B/W snapshot and asked who it was.  “Oh that’s Vivian” Mom answered calmly.  I thought for a minute and realized - I never saw her standing.   

It’s maybe 1955 at Washington Park.  I intentionally made her coupe bright red and her dress bright yellow.  I make no apologies for factual inaccuracies - it's Vivian, Mom's best friend before marriage and children.

I've blended period pop culture images into the piece.  Alfred Hitchcock Presents may be in the hub cap.  It's acrylic mixed medium on canvas 24" x 30"