Truths Part 3

Just another Monday becomes my biggest nightmare

January 3, 2020/Edited 12/6/2021 by author.

The above is a print that was created by artist Bruce Lowney. I bought this print in Santa Fe in 1983 — he was hot on the scene then. But he was not an artist that focused on the Southwest, except for maybe some of his landscapes in which he placed his “subjects”. For instance, the above reminds me of the many pecan orchards in New Mexico that grow along the Rio Grande in the southern part of the state. They are perfectly in order, and create beautiful lines, as you see above. I always laughed at the humor in this piece — a dark humor. I never thought it would become significant to me.

You see, my son died by suicide in December, just weeks before I am writing this.

This was not what “Truths Part 3” was supposed to be about. It was meant to lead into my mom’s battle with mental illness, and her experience of forcibly being subject to ECT treatment for six weeks in Galveston, Texas in the 1960s, and the result it had on her life, then and now.

Instead, I am grieving the death of my own son, Alex, due to chronic severe depression. I wasn’t even aware that he had gone through identical treatments, although much more humane than those that took place in the ’60s, until after his death. We were disconnected for too long.