Painting the Barn

Daniel announced yesterday that he was an excellent painter. Not sure where that came from, but sure pal, whatever you say. I mentioned he was about 15 years too late, though, because Opa would have surely appreciated his talent.

My father died with Alzheimer's Disease early in 2002. He had been living in a full care facility for 5 years, but the disease struck him long, long before that. Probably earlier than any of us recognized, in fact.

I related to Daniel a conversation I'd had with my mother in the mid 90s. Dad had retired a few years previous, and was kicking around, looking for things to do. Mom was happy to let him mess around with any projects that would keep him distracted and out of her hair. When he was unoccupied, he became paranoid, and when he became paranoid, he became very, very unreasonable. So any job, truly ANY job, was a good job that he needed to devote himself to fully. He decided that the barn needed painting. He rounded up every can, full or partial, of every paint he could find - interior, exterior, oil, latex, stain, polyurethane, didn't matter. He got a chair and a brush, and he set off to paint the barn. Whatever colour he had, as high as he could reach standing on his chair. Mom said it took him a full week to use up all the paint he had.

I wish I had a picture, I'll bet it was a sight to see. And since some of those paints probably dated from the orange/avocado/gold 70s, I'll bet seeing it, even from a great distance, was no problem at all.