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Vivian Hanby began painting seriously when she was 63
years old. She had never had a lesson, never used
instruction books, just painted what she saw, or what
she saw in her mind. The amazing thing is that Vivian
Hanby had Alzheimer's Disease when she painted these.
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Beautiful landscapes, trees, streams, covered bridges,
old barns, lighthouses, and snow scenes are the subjects of
most of her paintings, though there some still-lifes
and portraits as well. |
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Dorothy Womack, Vivian's daughter, was her caregiver.
Dorothy tells the story of her years as her mother's caregiver in her
book, Passage
into Paradise, which is now online at her web site. |
Dorothy also has shared her book of poetry,
Crowning Touches
at her site. She has also shared her poems at
A Window on My Mind, and in her
Reflections at Marsha Pennington's
Alzheimer's Outreach, and here at this site in
Contributed Poetry. |
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Dorothy wrote in her poem "I'm Me" of
what her mother would have said if she could about what it's like
having Alzheimer's. |
And we see how Dorothy felt, watching her mother leave long before
her death in her poem "Watching". |
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As her mother was a talented artist, so Dorothy
is a talented poet and writer, and has written poems which stir
our emotions and bring back memories, like "A Light
on in the Window". |
She has a gift for writing poems for caregivers and former
caregivers she has met on the Internet. I have been honored by the poem
Dorothy wrote for me, "Most of All", written as
what my mother would say to me about my experience as her caregiver. |
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When Dorothy's mother was in the later stage of her
disease, she asked "Who did all these beautiful paintings?", and Dorothy
told her "God did." She said that was true because God did do them through
her mother. Dorothy feels the same way about the poetry she writes.
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