The picture above is of two stained glass panels I just installed in our bedroom. This is the second time I’ve installed these two pieces; the first time was in 1978 – thirty-three years ago. They haven’t been in my possession for twenty-five years; they just came back to me early this month.
Kudos to my buddy Malette for reuniting me with something I treasure – thank you my friend; I will never be able to truly pay you back for your kindness.
The story starts in New York where Chris Shepherd and I were browsing through an antiques store on a trip from Richmond. If memory serves, the shop was on the Upper West Side, near the Museum of Natural History. We saw these two panels and liked them immediately, but could only afford to buy one.
The details of what happened next are a bit fuzzy but I know that I somehow returned to the store on a later trip and bought the second panel, surprising Chris on his birthday, or for Christmas, or for our anniversary – not sure which. He was thrilled, as was I.
(If anyone reading this needs a refresher on who Chris was and how important he is to me, read this).
I installed the two panels in a set of bookcases, jerry-rigging lights behind them. The bookcases enjoyed pride of place in our Monument Avenue apartment and later in our Charlottesville townhouse.
Fast forward to 1986 and my move to New York. Chris and I had separated, I had ended up with the bookcases and I was lightening my load, getting rid of lots of stuff for the move into Ransom’s apartment. Malette had always liked them so I sold the bookcases to him, though they were really showing their age – it was a cheap, pressed-wood, pre-fab unit, the kind Ikea now sells by the millions.
He and his wife Jane Ann built a beautiful home on the beach near Wilmington, North Carolina, and had the two pieces of glass installed in a wall between two rooms. They looked great. (see picture, not great).
Chris died in 1994 and after the service I visited with his sister Ashley who very kindly asked me to choose something of his as a keepsake. I did, taking a couple of goblets that we had bought together. I knew though that the keepsake I most wanted was in that beautiful home in Carolina Beach. Years later when Malette and Jane Ann moved out of that house he asked me if I wanted the glass back. He offered to give it to me if I would pay to have the wall patched. I was delighted and thought the offer was exceedingly generous.
It’s taken quite a while for us to figure out how to get the glass to CT, but early this month Malette and I met in DC; we had both driven, and there the swap was made.
And now it’s taken me too many words to tell this story, but it is such an important story to me that I hope you’ll forgive. Chris will always own a piece of my heart and now I again own a piece of our life together. Once more, thank you, Malette.
And to bring the story full circle: when, with a bit of anxiety in my heart – since, after all, they represented my life with another man -- I asked Ransom what he thought, he said “I love them.” There’s no better ending than that.
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