I’m reading the back of this painting, something I have not done since receiving it. This painting has always been on the wall, the back message forgotten for twenty-five years. I didn’t realize, didn’t remember, that he respected my writing. My memory was that he liked the idea that I wanted to be a writer, forgotten about the times in his studio where I would read him my work. I never put the pieces together that he saw me as a fellow artist until today. On the back of the painting he calls me Elizabeth, my pen name. He never called me Elizabeth, always Beth. This painting is for the artist he saw me as, not for his daughter. He does not sign the “letter” to me, does not sign it at all, only signs his name under the title of the painting, “John Rosell” with the date. When I first read the back of the painting all those years ago, the message washed over me. I just couldn’t imagine a future where he was really and truly gone. I would have been thirty at the time of receiving this painting. He was larger than life, an extreme, unstoppable, unkillable person. It felt he would be in my life forever. This painting looks more like my dad then I think he realized. The painting portrays how he always looked in my mind. The beard, the eyes, the hardness to the face. Maybe he did know, maybe that was the point. I was admiring another artist in front of him, and he wanted in on the action, wanted to remind me he was the original artist in my life. We had an amazing friendship in that room, but a strained, violent relationship outside of the studio. He was unpredictable, uncontrollable, could take offense at what he considered the slightest insult to him. Inside that room I was safe, outside I was not. He would not explode with anger, would not flip on a dime or turn into rage in his studio. In his studio, he had control and could become lost in his muse. He could be himself in his studio. I was allowed in as long as I wasn’t his child, wasn’t someone he had to look after or take care of in the traditional parental way. He never wanted a child, something he had no issue sharing with me. But in return he would flatter me, say I wasn’t like a child but a fellow artist, that he enjoyed my company. I was his friend, so I took the role he gave me. As I read the back of the painting for the first time in twenty-five years it is June 15, 2025. I am struck by a trilogy of memories and connections. The first is that he created this painting at Easter. My father died in my arms at Easter. Today, the day I’m reading the back again, it is Father’s Day. I’m also reminded that yesterday, June 14, was his birthday. The synchronicity of the universe made me pull this painting today, made me read the back today. The universe sucker punched me in the gut with a triad of relations to meanings and timings for me. My father was half right in what he wrote. The memory is bittersweet. But not only the memories of my father, but more about the wasted years of not writing, of allowing life and my own mental health issues get in the way. I would begin winding down my writing at this time, only writing sporadically. I wonder if dad noticed, if he was disappointed that I stopped writing. He never mentioned it. It was not until I moved to Timmins that I was finally at a place in my life, in my own mental health journey, to begin writing again. I wish I could share that with my dad. Would he be proud of me? Would he feel I’m following in his footsteps?