This painting says it all!

this is a copy of an album cover to which i was commissioned to paint last year...i will say it was one that i truly enjoyed doing and i realized that the reason i enjoyed it so much was.. first it was just a cool piece with neat colors but the second reason was that this so vividly showed how i had been feeling for the past 14 years just after your diagnosis. i have to say though that as the years went by my fears accelerated and felt more desperate. after you went away this was what was left...this feeling.....it just visually explains it so well. in case anyone is wondering it is "King Krimson".......

Sometime in 1996 when we both worked at Saddler's Row, I can remember all of the people who used to come into the shop and we would talk about mostly horses, the people who owned those horses or anything relating to the "horsey world". I believe it was right after you had come back from working for one of the trainers in Florida. You had so looked forward to being a part of the caravan going to learn, groom, have the time of your life....just what i thought would have been a good experience. Just before you went to Florida we had taken you to the doctor at the recommendation of a friend who thought you may be on the verge of an eating disorder. When we went to see a specialist at Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge, IL he had said that you didn't necessarily have an eating disorder, but you were definitely "at risk". Okay, so you ended up going and the plan was to be gone a total of 6 weeks. I remember how once you got there you were terribly unhappy....you hated everything about being there...i remember being puzzled as to why, but in any event after 3 weeks into it, chel, dale and i packed up and came to visit you....you were so ecstatic to see us and so happy to be with chel,(which was very out of character) but we just went with it and had a good time just being with you.....you had lost some weight in the few weeks that i hadn't seen you... i remember the time we went to the grocery store to buy you some food for your trailer and we were both walking through the aisle with the frozen things, there was a mirror and i happened to look into it, I said to you,"monica, you look like one of those anorexic girls"...you just looked so thin to me. i had no clue what was in store for all of us... i was kind of in a daze and also in a state of...denial. it lasted longer than it should have, but i just couldn't wrap my brain around any of it.

the morning before we were to leave the trainer you were working for had a secret meeting with dad and i pleading with us to take you home, that she thought you were in big trouble....and boy was she right! she explained to us that she had a friend who had suffered from an eating disorder and she was in really bad shape.

We did take you home with us that day. I remember feeling so happy that we were able to take you home to protect you and get you some help. I wish it could have been that easy.......when i took you back to the same doctor in PR, he then told us that indeed you did have an eating disorder. i remember thinking, "that's odd it all happened in 3 weeks????

so when i had gone back to work the following week i was at saddlers row and was walking down the hall to the back room where i worked at receiving merchandise. The accountant at the time yelled to me from her office and said, "oh, i saw monica the other day riding and she looked awfully thin to me". well this was a trigger for me and i just broke down at that point. i couldn't stop crying, it was terrible, because the store got busy and they needed me to help some customers, but it was so difficult to compose myself. i have only had this happen to me a few time in my life....i am more of a silent griever, sad person, crier......i hate to cry in front of people....just hate it. I don't remember if i ever told you that story....i really don't remember a lot of the past, that's why i really want to write all of these memories down to document them. it's funny too when i write these things it spurs other memories and stories...anyways, going to the barn now with chelsey to ride greta....im so glad that chel has that outlet...you would be so proud of her.......................

miss you......m