Tuesday 12 August 2014

Remembering Cathy

               Last Friday, several hundred people gathered in the beautiful little town in the Upper Ottawa Valley, Eganville to honour and say goodbye to Cathy. The pic above exemplifies the way Cathy lived, full of life, experimenting wildly with many different passions. Among all her passions, her family always came first, completely engaged with her grandchildren, her husband, her son, daughter and many members of a huge extended family. We found that out Friday. Cathys' other passions, were her horse and riding, dog agility training, music (singing, and playing piano and guitar), and of course, how we all knew her, through art.
              One of the ways that I knew Cathys' family was so important to her was in the many paintings she did of them. I was always helping her with pastels of grandchildren and recently, of her daughter Meghan, in her wedding dress. Cathy was just lovely to be around. She had a peaceful persona, yet many ideas to pursue, and active imagination pushing her to try everything.
               Last October, Cathy was part of my entourage in France, and was adventurous, taking advantage of every opportunity to paint in different locales. During this time she really saved me from a trip to the doctors, as I has an absessed tooth, (remember ladies!), and she gave me her anti-biotics which she had brought in case of chronic sinus infection. Thank you SO much for that Cathy, you SOOOO saved me there, as I was the teach, and just could not be out of commission!
              While travelling to France, Cathy and I had a harrowing experience of getting separated at the Frankfurt Airport, and without getting into a long story,...I guessed I saved her too, because once I got to our connecting gate, I purposely had a lengthly debate, shall we say, about the next flight, and the impossibility of how far apart our gates were, with the attendant. I was sent on a bus to drive us to our next plane, sans Cathy,  but at the last minute, just as the bus was pulling away, the attendant that I "debated" with was yelling to stop, and there was Cathy! barreling forward as fast as possible. Well,...she got on that bus, and we were SOOOO relieved, and laughed and laughed. It's one of those experiences that you know will make a good story later, but didn't really enjoy living through.
             During our stay in France we all shared many laughs, and I'm sure Cathy had the time of her life. I'm SO glad she came this year, and was able to have this life experience.
             One of the things I really appreciated about Cathy, was the way she would always post something at the end of a workshop, saying, I just had a great workshop with Margaret Ferraro, always saying something very nice, how much she enjoyed it. So kind, and thoughtful.
              Cathy lost her short battle with Cancer at the age of 57. We hear it often, but still get sent the message to live every day fully, you never know when the end for you will be. I'm sure Cathy was peaceful in the end, as that is what her personality would ask for. Let's let the way she lived, be a lesson to us all, to live and love fully.
This was about 6pm. at night, chasing shadows in a valley, about 2 or 3 km. from hour retreat, in the Lot Valley, southwest France. It was a magical light that evening, and we all came away with something we were pleased with. Cathy later painted this scene in acrylic as well as pastel, en plein air.

Chilling in our hotel room in Toulouse, after a glorious day of warm weather, sun, eating at a great outdoor patio, gallery hopping, culture appreciating,..we packed it in,... and were just beat,...Cathy reviewed her photos as I lay on my bed and painted! 

If anyone else has pics of Cathy on our trip, or of her artwork, please sen them to me. Cheers everyone, stay healthy, and grateful for our lives.
More pics that were sent in from various students, from our last trip to France, with Cathy Sheridan.







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