It wasn’t like the whole family had to pay for it. No one had volunteered, though they would take some of the credit when the 25th anniversary gift was opened and exclaimed and hung lovingly over the fireplace for all to see. It wasn’t as if the wedding portrait, an original oil painting from an old photo, was someone else’s idea, but someone would probably say it had been.
It was an idea that had been forming in the back of my mind since last year when my grandparents celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary, which fell on Christmas Day. Twenty-five years of marriage doesn’t seem like much to grandparents, especially those with forty-something grandchildren like me, but theirs was an incredible love story. Both had been married to other people after the Holocaust and had subsequently tragically lost their spouses (he to cancer, she in a car accident) and then fell in love again. Marrying later in life, to well-established, adult families, hadn’t been the easiest of transitions. Different lifestyles, beliefs, and ways to properly cook a Thanksgiving turkey were just a few of the many issues that arose between the newly merged family members, but now was the time to unite.
It had originally been the idea of a family portrait – to make a painting from a photo taken of the whole family – siblings and step-siblings, children and grandchildren, nieces and nephews – but the idea had gotten bigger than she could handle, so I decided to simplify with a wedding portrait of my grandmother and grandfather together on their wedding day, shrunken and wrinkled, old then, 25 years ago, but happy, deliriously happy.
Since their anniversary fell on Christmas day, I thought the original oil painting would make a unique Christmas gift idea as well as a memorable 25th wedding anniversary gift. They deserved something special to commemorate how far they had come. They knew about all the fights, even though we, the blended family, always tried to hide the unpleasantness from them. Maybe it was too late to try to teach an old family new tricks, but they didn’t think so. Every son and grandson, niece and nephew were loved by my grandmother and her grandfather as if they were flesh and blood.
They deserved something special. The thought kept going around in my head. A wedding portrait would not be enough. I would have to revive the idea of the family portrait. They deserved something special like the whole family, the two they had worked so hard to make into one, coming together on a page, or at least one on a canvas, blissfully frozen in one timeless collection. A session would never work, but a painting from a photo would. It wasn’t going to be easy, but then again, love of any kind never is. After all they had given, it was worth the sighs and groans, the unwanted opinions and ideas, the late arrivals at the photography studio, and the enormous cost of giving my grandmother and grandfather, my grandparents, what they love most. in the world. world, his whole family.