A Birthday Letter to Mary Cassatt

Dear Ms. Mary Cassatt,

On May 22 of this year, you would be turning 176-years-old. I can only imagine the strokes your paintbrush could make with 94 extra years. While you left Earth long ago, your imprint on the world remains. You brought life and sensitivity to the Impressionist movement. Your art didn’t — your art doesn’t — just hang on walls or sit behind museum glass. Your art lives as much today, as the day your canvas dried.

Your work writes novels without words.

It opens eyes that are closed.

It shows fragility in a sharp world.

You brought a new light to women. Placing them in the spotlight, when they were supposed to hide in the shadows. You made children known. How they are important — how they are special. You intertwined the two, making beauty of the fact that mother and child are one — a union that starts together, and never ends.

Mary — you have left the world with art that cannot be ignored. It cannot be unseen. It cannot be forgotten. Your life’s work was completed long ago. The paints are empty, the brushes are brittle, and the easel is withered. But your art has never been more alive.

Our world often lacks the simple sight of a gentle gesture, a soft face, and the definition of love. When I forget — when my mind races and floods with the dullness of today’s way of life, I turn to your paintings. It reminds me of the good that still lives in us.

Thank you for sitting down one day, long ago, and dipping a brush in a puddle of paint. The picture turned out better than you could have believed.

Happy birthday — Mary.