Mission Accomplished

Back in September of 2011, my Wonderful Husband and I took a car trip to see the Fall colors in Colorado. We both took a lot of pictures and had a very enjoyable time. One of the pictures my Wonderful Husband took was of a church. It was sitting back off the main highway, probably a quarter mile away. There were dark evergreen trees and the mountain in the background and a row of bright yellow aspens just behind the white church. The meadow that was between us and the church was filled with native plants in various shades of orange, red and yellow. It was a beautiful scene. It wasn't until we got back to Arizona and were looking at our photos on the computer that we could see the name of the church: Holy Family Mission. An internet search revealed that this Catholic church had been built in the early 1940's.

At a later date, probably in early 2012, I posted the photo on my Facebook page. It was seen by Richard
"Ricketysticks" McWilliams, who also has Parkinson's disease. He asked permission to use my Wonderful Husband's picture because he wanted to paint this church. I had seen some of Richard's paintings online and I was very impressed. Besides painting, Richard makes canes from tree branches and then gives them away to people who can't afford them, hence the "Ricketysticks" nickname. He's made over 4000 canes in the last 45 years! My Wonderful Husband said yes and we emailed Richard a bigger file size of the photo so he would be able to see the detail better.

Fast forward to 2014. I knew the painting was finished because Richard had sent me a photo of it. Then I got a message from Richard that a neighbor of his was coming to Yuma (Richard lives in N. California) and the painting was in the man's truck. Well, a few days later, Richard's neighbor, Jason, called and said he was in Yuma. We made arrangements to meet and he gave me the Mission painting!!  I sent an autographed copy of my Parkinson's Humor book and a CD of my silly song parodies back with Jason (not nearly an equal trade, but it was all I had.)

YumaBev with the 2 Mission pictures

Here is a picture of me holding Richard's painting with the photo in the background. I'd call it Mission Accomplished.