Colors of Healing: A Mother’s Journey Through Grief
Before losing Deana, Nina had never held a paintbrush. Her days were filled with mother-daughter adventures, daily phone calls and texts filled with Deana’s latest stories. At 45, Deana was a force of nature – a world traveler with an infectious laugh who could befriend strangers in any country and find beauty in the most unexpected places. She approached life like a grand adventure, collecting stories and spreading joy wherever she went.
Their bond went far beyond mother and daughter – they were best friends who shared everything. Sunday brunches turned into hours-long conversations. Simple errands became memory-making adventures. Every call ended with “I love you more,” a playful competition neither would concede.
When cancer took Deana, Nina’s world stopped spinning. The silence in her home was deafening. No more spontaneous visits, no more late-night calls about Deana’s latest adventure in some far-off land, no more shared dreams of future travels.
“I didn’t know what I was doing,” Nina shares, her eyes soft with memory. “I just knew I needed to get these feelings out somehow. That first night, I sat and painted, emotional pieces full of color and pain and love.”
What began as a way to survive sleepless nights transformed into something profound. Nina started painting what Deana had loved. Nina taught herself to paint, each stroke a labor of love.
“Sometimes I think Deana guided me to this,” Nina says, standing in her now-converted studio. “She always told me to step out of my comfort zone, to try new things, to embrace the unknown. Just like she did in her travels. Now I’m doing that through art, and somehow, it makes me feel closer to her.”
Her paintings capture something deeper than just scenes: they capture feelings, memories, and the essence of a daughter who lived life in full color. “Every time I paint, I feel like I’m having a conversation with her,” Nina explains, working on her latest piece . “It’s as if she’s standing beside me, telling me about the colors, the feelings, the moments that made each place special.”
Nina’s home has become a gallery of love and remembrance. Each wall tells a story of Deana’s adventures, captured through her mother’s newfound artistic expression. Friends and family who visit often find themselves in tears, seeing Deana’s spirit alive in every canvas.
Other grieving parents began seeking Nina out, drawn by how she transformed her pain into something beautiful. She shares with them what she’s learned: that grief can birth creativity, that love finds new ways to express itself, that it’s never too late to find a new way to heal.
“I never thought I’d be an artist,” Nina reflects, paint-stained fingers tracing the edge of a canvas. “But Deana always said life’s greatest gifts come in unexpected packages. She taught me to embrace adventure, to find beauty everywhere. Now I’m doing that through paint and canvas, creating something new from my love for her.”
In her grief, Nina discovered not just a new skill, but a new way to keep traveling with Deana, to keep sharing adventures, to keep their bond alive. Each painting is a love letter, each color a memory, each brushstroke a way of saying “I love you more” – their eternal competition continuing through art.
Through her unexpected journey into art, Nina shows us that love never dies – it transforms, finding new ways to shine, to heal, to connect. And somewhere, she knows Deana is smiling, proud of her mom for embarking on her own beautiful adventure, one painting at a time.