Barb draws a happy face on a faded-yellow autumn leaf and makes a figure out of leaves and sticks that we’ve collected in our backyard on Seaside Avenue.  Maria draws a green outline around a red maple leaf glued to light blue paper.  My little sisters can be sweet at times, especially now, as they listen to me as I instruct them how to make art out of nature, paper, and crayons.  Art is in me.  Not the type of art that Vincent, a boy in my fourth grade class has, as Sister Ann coos over his drawings.  I’m not as good as he is at drawing, however, I quietly convince myself that the art world is waiting for me.

Years later, in a fit of dangerous fury, when in the down-and-outs, financially and emotionally, I throw away the rolls of film that capture Daddy’s technical drawings as a tool-and-die maker.  He was a machinist who designed jigs, dies, and machine and cutting tools used in manufacturing processes.  Uncle Eddie gave the film to me, as a keepsake of Daddy.  I suppose he didn’t need it to remember Daddy’s art.  I wonder what he thought as he made the decision to give the film to me after saving it for many years.

“The jig is up, Jeanne,” Mom would say, meaning a jig, as in a trick.

I don’t have to wonder about any of it anymore.

With regrets of throwing away the film, I shove the film in my imaginary back pocket, along with Tolstoy’s War and Peace, and Mom’s patch of Uncle Pippi’s garden.  I can take them out whenever I want to and thank Dear, Sweet, Jesus for that and for loving me.  I thank Him for giving me the gift of forgiveness and that I am no longer the judge, the jury, the decision-maker, of Mom’s life.  I am no longer a jig, as in Daddy’s trade, a custom-made tool used to control the motion of another tool.  I thank Him for making me an artisan of peace.