Sitting at my dining table writing in my journal, which has become my first thing in the morning ritual (after getting the coffee going), I look across to the wall, where, finally, one of my favorite paintings now hangs. It is a very large painting by my son, Daniel. I call it Madonna of the Kitchen. I came across this painting while flipping through a stack of Daniel’s paintings in the upstairs hallway of our family home. I took it down to the kitchen and leaned it against the wall on the sideboard, and there she stayed until I got it framed. Dan said it was unfinished. Maybe that is what I like. The face is compelling; she evokes a deep reaction in me. As if I know her. Daniel said it was a face that he created, not a portrait of an individual. Large, dark eyes of sorrow. Her head tilted toward her left shoulder. She steps out of history. As if she lives in the 1920s. I don’t know why, it just strikes me as if she is from that era. I ‘m glad that it is unfinished. A work in progress that I have claimed in its fluid state. She reminds me of my mother and grandmother. She is all the women in history who have mourned. She could be Our Lady of the Sorrows, a pieta reflecting on her lovely son.