This one is very poignant to me. It’s an unfinished oil painting by mom, Pat McReynolds. It’s the last painting that was she working on at the time of her death. This is the painting that she wanted to get back to work on as she was lying in her hospital bed.

She was active up until the day before she was admitted to the hospital and seemed so well, we almost forgot that she had cancer.

A few weeks before that, she took me into her studio and showed me this painting in progress. She said she was struggling with the horses’s legs.

One thing stands out in my memory. She asked my opinion on what would make it a better painting. This is a question that most artists don’t ask … because the inspiration comes from within. I can’t remember what I said. It’s just another instance that shows how remarkably generous she was to invite me into her very personal process of creation.

When I look at it now, I wonder how she envisioned the glowing center. Was this how she saw her own heavenly departure from this earth?