Tchaikovsky himself was quoted as saying: “Life is beautiful in spite of everything! There are many thorns, but the roses are there too.” My father had that rosy and appreciative attitude toward life and family. He saw the beauty in all of us. Bud was an artist to the very end of his life. A week before he passed away this past March at 86, I remember him looking out the door of his living room to say, “I want to paint this view–even with the clock tower slightly cut off from sight–just like this with the window panes and everything.” I know he was lonely without my mother these past four years, and he was stuck in a wheelchair, but he still found beauty in his life and home and family. Oscar Wilde, one of my favorite writers, wrote a line for one of his characters in Lady Windermere’s Fan that makes me think of my father: “We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.” Perhaps his greatest gift to me was living according to that saying—he showed me how to see and look for beauty, no matter where I am. Thanks to him, I hope to make of my life a "work of Art."
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