No one knows how it really plays out when people leave heaven to come to live on earth, inhabiting temporal bodies designed for a limited duration mortal experience. For me, symbolic as it was, I envisioned it as an orderly matter in which our eternal parents would lovingly see us off. It came to me in an instant. Within the hour I had paint on a canvas. Working without models, I just did my best. There were nice photos of earth to use.

Rather than depict them directly, I designed that the main subject was saying goodbye looking into the eyes  of her heavenly parents.

In her face I wanted the mixture of intense love deeply felt, joy, confidence, eagerness to proceed and prove faithful, gratitude, intelligence, goodness, and excitement. She would leave the only home she ever knew and go on her own to a place where her memories of the current life would be masked and where she would have to find truth herself and embrace it entirely under her own desire. She would be faced with trials aplenty and miseries unheard of where she came from.

I could not speak when I tried to describe this painting, primitive as it was, for the first couple of years. Even though I hated choking up, it was unavoidable because I was so moved. Still am.

Now, I’ve painted the girl and most of the other people out again and have worked with a beautiful young woman to get photos to help work out the scene. This time I’m armed with oil paints and this amazing model, which are huge advances compared to making up the girl and depending on acrylic paints.