Paintings by Steven, my son

This is a painting that my son Steven did of his Navajo grandfather who also was a code talker during W.W.II. Steven has since painted his brother Daniel which he gave to him not too long ago. Grandpa lost his mate Dorothy of over 50 years of marriage last year. He lives alone in a desolate area north of Holbrook, Arizona. His family has always been there for him as he has been for his kids. I wished Steven had done one of his grandmother too. She was a very kind woman with a big heart for kids. Their children are all over the country but most live in Arizona. Several are in the ministry and several are teachers.
Earlier in their lives Grandpa and his wife Dorothy lived near Whitecone Trading Post and built a church north of there. The kids went to Holbrook as they ministered to the Navajo people in that area for several years. Another picture that my son painted is one of his own hands holding a paintbrush and the other side of the panel are his grandpa's hands holding the Bible.

This picture of my son Daniel was from a photo in our back yard in Vanderwagen, New Mexico. He is holding his cat "Patches". He really loves his cat and picks her up several time a day just to hug her. He used to play a game with her by throwing a ball of paper and she would run crazily to fetch it, put it in her mouth and come back with it and drop it at his feet. He stopped playing that game for a while and now she only goes after the paper and forgets to bring it back. She also cost us a huge electric bill one winter when I was down in Phoenix staying with his dad who had cancer.

He would drive down every weekend with things I needed and he'd bring the mail. Well, one time he came home and the back door was open and it was in the middle of winter. He brought a friend to stay with him and he just couldn't find out why that door kept opening. Did someone break in? What was the deal?

One night, while watching television, his friend noticed the cat jumping up and pulling the handle of the door down and just sitting there looking out. Finally, he found out but it took two trips to Phoenix before he could do anything about it. Of course, the heater would go on full blast all the time he was in Phoenix and that was about three days. You can imagine what our bill looked like.