The Portrait

This image hangs in our hallway upstairs, not a Rembrant piece after all, as it was once believed, but it came from his studio where he tutored his students.  It possesses his influence if not his direct brush strokes.

I got the print in an antique store the first year we lived here, a gift to Aaron because he loves this painting.  When he was little working in the restaurant his family owned, La Fiesta, this image was hanging there, and he thought that it was a painting of Grandpa Joe.  Honestly, the physical resemblance is uncanny, and there is an aire, a spirit, in the expression of this man that has always mirrored Grandpa Joe.  There's something in the downcast eyes, the furrowed brow, the lips set firm, that leads us to realize the man has struggled, and although valiant, he's scarred, he has wounds behind his eyes like a veteran.  Even though his helmet is brassy in the dim, his face in contrast is worn by the tumult of life.  In the conquest much was sacrificed.  To us, this painting will always remain a portraiture of Grandpa Jose.

Yesterday Grandpa passed on, and much as our greif rocks us, we praise God that he's no longer locked down in a broken body, but free and finally at peace.

My husband is the most wonderful man I know, strong and wise, faithful and humble.  Grandpa's essence dwells in him, there in the corner of his smile and the shape of his eyes, the curve of his mouth when he laughs, the way he leans into God's voice, and prays for us in the cool morning air.   I see him in my boys, too, in Raphael's curls that came from Grandpa Jose's grandmother, an African.  In that robust fighter's spirit that Andres harbors with such vivacious energy, and the way he preaches to us about God just like his namesake.  And I'll always be grateful to Grandpa Jose, the scrapper from Texas, the musician, the farmer, the soldier, entrepanuer, and minister, for his strength and courage because it has impacted us all.  Like that painting in our hallway by some anonymous student in Rembrant's studio, we observe the stroke of the master's brush, and carry out his influence in our lives.