Across the Way

It's no secret that my favorite painting of my grandfathers is
'Across the Way'.

(click here for that story).

So you can imagine how excited I was when my brother came across this picture:

It is a picture of the Hollywood Hills, directly across the way from my late grandparent's home. Look at the resemblance between the painting and the photograph. Those are most definitely the same hills.

Something else about those hills....there is now a cemetery at the base of them. My father was buried there 6 years ago next month, across the way from his childhood home. There is something very sweet about that; a figurative representation of the circle of life I would say.

Also buried there are my maternal grandparents, aunt, and great-grandmother.

Since that photograph was taken (sometime in the 40's) the view has changed quite a bit; my grandparents put in a pool and planted some orange and palm trees.

Current view:

The day that I took the picture above, Donald went out and picked a few of the oranges that you can see on the trees. After using them to make some freshly squeezed juice, he collected the seeds and brought them home with us to Washington.

And now look what we have growing in our kitchen window:

A little piece of my family history.

It's a beautiful thing.