Goodbye is a surprise. At sunrise, I was painting en Plein air on Atlantic Avenue beach in Pompano Beach. Rain storms were rolling in. It is important to pay attention to light and the people around you.

Little did I know how much I did not know. Everyone has a story.

I was totally engrossed in making a painting in the impending rain. Oh! The challenge! And yes, I decided to put in a few of the people sharing the morning with me at the shore. I did not think much of it, just painting some people.

One of these people came to look at my painting. This is pretty common on the beach. What was not common was his conversation about the man and woman still at the shore. They had lost their father the night before. They lived in Columbia and came to be with him as he left this earth.

It seems that the sunrise and the ocean were the place to be to find peace. I call it the Cathedral. A place to pay homage to God’s power – so much stronger than ours.

Goodbye is about these people finding a new section of their life. The part without their father – that part that seems to last forever. It is a time to reflect and to be grateful for who they have become because of their father. Good and Bad.

I would never have guessed they were going through that time in their lives by just looking at them. Impressions can be deceiving. Nature will absorb our common pain and make us reevaluate our place on this earth.

Goodbye