Henrik's Painting

On Henrik’s twelfth birthday, God told him to paint. His father grumbled about the New Deal and the Dust Bowl, but Henrik concerned himself with sneaking around the sugar beet heap. The chill breeze told him they’d harvested just in time. Minnesota winters froze the ground into impenetrable beet prisons, but for now, the soil gave way before his father’s tractor.

Canadian geese honked overhead like Henrik’s aunts gossiping at church. Pumpkins dotted the garden, and squirrels fought over acorns. Red and gold burst through the treetops like a sunset in leaves. The signs of fall: Henrik’s divine instructions. So much beauty he couldn’t describe in words, but maybe he could paint it.

Henrik acquired an old milk crate from behind the neighbor’s barn. He stowed his new canvas in his father’s tool shed and hopped on his bike. Dust clouds trailed him to town, where he offered to dust the drugstore shelves for Herr Sungaard in exchange for paints and brushes.

In his secret corner of the attic, Henrik painted. Only two months until Christmas. If he intended to finish the present for his mother, he needed to work quickly.

“Henrik. I know you’re up there. Come finish your chores,” his mother called from the kitchen.

Henrik eyed his half-finished work. He couldn’t disobey his mother’s orders without revealing his present. He capped his paints and ran downstairs.

The geese left. The sunset in the trees dropped to the ground before snow buried it. Henrik’s winter filled with chores, homework, and holiday preparations. Christmas came and went. He’d finish the painting by his mother’s birthday.

Henrik shook the bottles to ensure the paint was still usable. A series of wrenching coughs rose from his father’s bedroom. Henrik peaked through a crack in the floor and saw his father wheezing, his face gray like the sky during a snowstorm. The doctor whispered “pneumonia” in Mother’s ear.

Pneumonia. Henrik’s teacher would have rapped his knuckles with a ruler for using a /p/ like that, but pneumonia didn’t care how you spelled. It only cared how you breathed, meaning it hoped you didn’t.

The ground was too frozen to dig a grave, so Henrik’s father stayed in the Mort house until spring thaw. Henrik had no more time for painting. He was the man of the house now.

Sowing, weeding, harvesting—year after year the routine stayed the same, but Henrik changed. His legs grew longer, his back straighter, his voice deeper. Tuberculosis took his aunts. They always did everything together, even death. Influenza claimed his mother the next year.

Henrik buried his mother in the ground a week after digging the sugar beets out of it. A goose honked overhead as he brushed the dirt from his calloused hands. The sunset fell into the foliage. Henrik returned to the house. So much loneliness he couldn’t describe in words, but maybe he could paint it.

The next morning, he road into town. Herr Sungaard greeted him, his smile framed with creases. Henrik started to ask for paints, but a poster caught his eye. America joined the war against Hitler. His country needed him.

Henrik sold the farm and took the next train to Minneapolis. The Mill City didn’t care that he grew sugar beets instead of wheat. The army needed strong backs.

In Europe, Henrik saw wonders and horrors in the same scenes. Ancient cathedrals towered above him, their floors littered with bombed-out stained glass. Majestic river valleys clouded with smoke. A baby screamed in its dead mother’s arms. Red and gold returned to the leaves, this time in fire.

So many horrors he couldn’t describe in words, but maybe he could paint them. Henrik’s first mission upon returning to America was to buy supplies, but then he saw her. He never made it to the store. Who could contemplate the atrocities of war when lost in those deep blue eyes?

Their wedding—so much love he couldn’t describe in words, but maybe he could paint it. She had other ideas. Nine months later, they welcomed their first child into the world.

Tiny hands, little feet, his own features in a child’s face –so much joy he couldn’t describe in words, but maybe he could paint it. The child needed food. Painting didn’t pay, but trucking did. He watched his son grow in spurts between trips, missed his daughter’s birth by four hours after driving through a snowstorm.

Henrik drove through winter blizzards and spring thunderstorms. He squinted into the glare of the summer suns. Then came fall. As he drove his truck through the woods, the trees stood at attention, their colorful leaves saluting him. He bought painting supplies on the way home.

He’d just settled himself before the canvas when his daughter screamed.

“Ow! Daddy!”

He scooped her into his arms, kissed her pinched finger, and read her a bedtime story.

The next morning, he sat before the sunrise with his paints in a row. A small hand tapped his shoulder.

“Daddy? Can you show me how to throw a baseball?”

Henrik hefted his tired body out of the wicker chair and dragged himself to the yard. He played catch with his son until sunset.

Every day, Henrik brought out his canvas, but instead of painting, he kissed scraped elbows, fixed bent bicycle wheels, cheered home-run hits, and dried first-love tears. He gave his mother’s ring to his son for his sweetheart, aimed his shotgun at his daughter’s would-be suitors. Before long, he walked his daughter down the aisle and held his first grandchild. Henrik’s canvas remained empty.

The years passed: winters to springs to summers to fall. Fall, when the Good Lord painted the treetops. Perhaps now that his children were grown, he could capture their beauty. Henrik brought his canvas to the living room, but the paints and brushes clattered to the floor at the sight of his wife, unconscious, beneath the coffee table.

Breast cancer. Henrik carried his wife to her appointments, held her while she vomited, and cleaned the golden strands of her hair off her pillow. He took her hand; she took her last breath.

The pastor spoke the eulogy, but Henrik heard no words. He shoveled dirt onto his wife’s casket, endured sympathetic glances, and held his daughter while she sobbed. He returned home to an empty house.

So much pain he couldn’t describe in words, but maybe he could paint it. He set his paints out, yawned, and went to bed. At midnight, his heart stopped. Henrik awoke face to face with the Lord Almighty.

Callouses rubbed scars as the Lord shook his hand. “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

“But Lord,” Henrik said. “I never painted.”

The Lord laughed and gestured to the far wall. “Yes, you did.”

Covering the wall was the most beautiful painting Henrik had ever seen.

“Every moment of beauty, loneliness, horror, love, joy, pain—every sacrifice you made was a brush stroke on this canvas,” said the Lord.

Henrik stared in awe at his family portrait.