Mother’s Day

I picked Mother up at the nursing home in Houston early one weekend morning with the promise that I would spend the day with her. The home was not the best example of that sort of place and it was good to get her out whenever and wherever possible. I had decided to show her where I had attended college, and drove her over to the campus of the University of St. Thomas to look around and see what might occur to me as something she might like to see or do nearby. She was recently out of the psychiatric ward again and was doing better, so an outing of this sort seemed a good idea. Rothko Chapel and the MLK Reflecting Pool are just across the street from the dorms, so I headed there.

Choosing a place for Mother to be was something of a challenge. She was painfully self-conscious and often would, in response to her fear of embarrassment, settle into a toad-like state that helped her, I think, avoid being present. I was told she was schizophrenic, and I suppose it was her way of dealing with it.

Nevertheless, my sense was that she would like the chapel, and maybe even Rothko’s works, as well. She understood the concept of a chapel and what to expect of an exhibition of art. I told her that neither the chapel nor the artwork were what she might have expected, but for whatever reason, she was willing to go ahead.

Her obesity, which I always thought of as a slow suicide, dictated a halting but deliberate procession from the car to the dark chapel doors.

Rothko Chapel is simple, elegant, light and yet foreboding. Coming out of the bright sunlight into the foyer, it was not clear to Mother what she was in for as she peered into the sudden darkness. There was a counter with a sign-in book and a few items for visitors and a person behind it. There was also one discreet but very attentive security guard.

We went into the chapel, which is a large high ceiling room illuminated by indirect natural light. The walls are stucco and upon them hang the last of Rothko’s work, huge dark panels displayed on the eight walls of the chapel. The floor is dark stone and upon it are a few simple, heavy wooden backless benches. On the floor are a few round black cushions.

I quietly explained to Mother that this room was the chapel and the huge canvases were the art and that we could stay for as long as we liked. Nothing was required of us other than to sit, stand or walk in the chapel and look at the paintings. It was all right to talk, but to think of the space as one might a library.

I led her to the benches, there was one in front of each of the eight wall sections, and left her to it while I walked around.

Rothko opened just one year before I started at the University of St. Thomas. During my time there I attended, or heard of, various events at the chapel including music performances, yoga classes, weddings, community meetings, meditations and ceremonies of all sorts and denominations. I fell in love there.

I went there as often as I could to view the paintings and simply sit in that space. I stayed for minutes, or maybe hours.

While still in college, I applied to be a security guard at the chapel. I can’t remember if I was turned down or if I just never went back to follow up about the position.

It is hard to say how much time had passed when I became concerned that my mother might respond negatively to the dark and seemingly formless works with their lack of obvious narrative, and figured I better see how she was doing.

She was sitting straight up with her head tilted up toward the top of the canvas.

She appeared very small sitting there and was smiling softly.

“What do you think?” I asked when she realized I was there, never taking her gaze from the work.

Her pale blue eyes were bright with tears.

“I feel peaceful”, she said slowly, searching for each word carefully and thoughtfully, to be sure she had the ones she wanted and no others.

“It’s as though everything is going to be alright”.

“Are you ready to go?”

She turned to me, continuing to smile, and nodded.

We made a donation for a postcard of one of the paintings, which she kept tucked into the frame of her mirror at the nursing home she moved to not long after our time at the chapel.

She lived another seven years.