My favorite donkey

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November 29, 2009

By Steve Gillespie / managing editor The Meridian Star Sun Nov 29, 2009, 12:22 AM CST

My father battled some serious health problems for several years.

Things got worse in August. After a long stay in the hospital he was home for a while.

Around my birthday in October Dad's sister, my Aunt Betty in Florida, called to deliver a message from him along with word that he was back in the hospital.

"Your Dad said your jack (then she spelled the rest of the word because she's just so cute and sweet that way) a-s-s won't be ready for your birthday."

I got a big laugh out of it, but laughed even harder when I realized she didn't know what this weird little message meant.

Some people collect elephants. I collect donkeys. Some are made out of glass, iron, brass ... all kinds of different stuff. I have a lot of them.

My Dad loved to carve things. He had just sent me a donkey he bought, done up in political garb. I told him if he ever felt like carving a donkey sometime I'd like to have one he made, too.

He said he would, but I didn't know he started working on one right away. Knowing Dad, he probably just couldn't pass up the chance to try to get his sister to say "ass" by giving her that message to relay. And yes, we are talking about senior citizens, both of them, behaving this way.

After a week or so Dad made it out of the hospital again, but he died at his home in Florida on Nov. 9.

When I got down there my aunt pointed out the "jack...a-s-s" Dad had carved and painted. It was one of the last things he did.

So I was thinking a lot about him this Thanksgiving. I'm thankful for some natural talent for art I inherited from him, a Mr. smarty-pants attitude and a quirky, dark, sometimes demented and crude sense of humor.

That last time he was in the hospital I started doodling the same pattern over and over. I couldn't get it out of my head. I paint abstract paintings that are usually based on a particular incident pertaining to my life but this was different, or so I thought.

I realized I was doodling what looked like a rose everywhere — during meetings, at work, at home. So I started a painting of the image and it soon became three red roses I put on canvas. Other thoughts about three things were incorporated into it, like the trinity and the power of three. I called the painting "Three" and finished it a few days after Dad died. I still had no clue why I had painted it. When I got to Florida I found out.

As my sister, my aunt and I discussed details about the upcoming funeral, my aunt suggested we skip the spray of roses often laid on a casket. Instead, she thought it would be nice if she, my sister and I each laid a red rose on the casket.

A friend of my aunt's told her "everyone knows three red roses means 'I love you.'" I'm not sure I ever knew it, but those three roses, after they were laid together on the casket, sure did remind me of the mysterious painting.

It may have been a premonition, a mystical message, or a coincidence. It's just one of those things you know you'll never forget — like your Dad.

Steve Gillespie is managing editor of The Meridian Star. Email him at

sgillespie@themeridianstar.com.

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