my mother's death

I did this painting quite a while ago. mom died in 1993

the brown is her cancer, the green alien is my father, the blond woman is me, the brunette woman my sister. the baby is a child she wished she had. the maroon entity is the demon that made her smoke.


My mother wasn't really a happy person. She was lonely and when she did find love it slipped away. She was intelligent and read constantly, with only a third grade education. She became a real estate agent and sold land for a while but mostly, worked seasonally at the horse racing tracks from one end of california to another. she was too independent to really be a good mother, and left me with relatives and also with a foster family. she just couldn't be bothered.

Smoking, over a pack per day of camel cigarettes is what did her in, but she made it a bit quicker by drinking a gallon of milk a day, pumping phlegm into her lungs until she lost consciousness.

My niece watched her die. he fingers became blue (cyanotic). When the blue reached her writs, she expired.
she had tumors between her lungs and spine causing incredible pain.