I painted this a couple of years ago while living in my parents’ basement —
a grown man, hands shaking like loose change in a dryer,
choked by a quiet shame that never really left the room.
‍
I was cut off from my wife, my kids, my life —
all so I could do the ugliest and bravest thing I’ve ever done: start over.
‍
I was going to rehab.
I was going to get sober.
It was awful, and I was alone.
I missed home. I missed being needed —
even if it was just for snacks or socks.
‍
You don’t realize it when you are —
when it’s 3:17 a.m. and a kid is crying because their blanket fell off
or they saw a shadow shaped like a T-Rex
and you’re half-asleep, staggering down the hall
like some broke-down Frankenstein with bedhead
as you curse under your breath and swear you’re going to get
blackout curtains, a sleep consultant, a priest —
whatever it takes to make it stop.

Then one day, you mess it all up badly enough that it does stop.

You still wake up at 3:17 a.m.
Only now there’s no sock emergency.
There’s no little voice whisper-yelling “Dad!” from the hallway.
No feet padding toward your bed.

It’s just you.
The hum of the fridge.
And the same moan of old pipes you knew
when you were thirteen and dreamed about someday having a family.
‍
Nobody tells you the hardest part of losing a life isn’t the heartbreak.
Heartbreak is loud —
it screams, it throws things. You see it coming. You know its name.

What guts you is the after: the quiet.

It’s missing the sound of someone snoring in the room.
The clutter you used to trip over.
The late-night cries, the slammed doors, the bad jokes during dinner.
All the small aggravations you thought were obstacles
turn out to be the architecture of living --
the very proof that you were inside of something that was alive.

And there, in my parent’s basement,
I would’ve given anything to be inconvenienced again.
‍
On one night when the quiet got too loud,
I opened “The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse.”

I don’t know if it saved me,
I don't think books usually do,
but this one definitely saw me.
‍
Especially this one quote — “Life is difficult, but you are loved” —
I clung to it like a rope in a burning room.
It didn’t promise me it would get better.
It promised me I wasn’t alone.
And on most days, that was enough to keep going.
‍
People like to dress up pain with dragons and mountains
and varsity speeches about grit.

But here’s what I know:

You’re cold in a concrete box.
Your hands won’t stop shaking.
You’ve buried whole parts of your life.
And even so — you are still loved.
‍
This painting came from that place —
from the ache.
From the basement.
From the hope that even when you feel exiled from your own life,
something soft still finds its way in —
a breath,
a presence,
a horse, maybe.
‍
It says: Yes, life is hard.
But LOOK.
Look how Love finds you anyway.
‍
Even here.
Even now.
Even in the basement.
You’re not alone. You never were.
You were Held, Even Then


*Frame not included
• 1.25″ (3.18 cm) thick poly-cotton blend canvas
• Canvas fabric weight: 10.15 +/- 0.74 oz./yd.² (344 g/m² +/- 25g/m²)
• Fade-resistant
• Hand-stretched over solid wood stretcher bars
• Mounting brackets included
• Blank product sourced from the US, Canada, Europe, UK, or Australia

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