When you are no longer grieving a loved one, it becomes your job to celebrate the life that has gone away from you. You are joyful about it because joy must be paramount to your life.

Most of all, death has a lesser sting when you celebrate it and I mean, celebrate. Celebrating the death of a love one feels good.

It’s not like celebrating one’s birthday or an holiday because it has a life of its own.

This is what happens every December. The month my dear Mother passed away- and the month she was born.

This time I celebrated her by doing what I was supposed to do- I went to class.

My professor sent the class a message on Canvas: today we will have a Special Guest. I thought,

I was planning on attending another event and skipping class altogether. However, in the past, the special guests proved to be indeed special.

I met a curator and a comedian who both lauded the class with stories of how they got their foot in the door and their careers running.

This guest, Canvas said, was the artist who published the comic strip, Being An Artist and Mother, named Lauren Weinstein.

I looked at her art and was moved. It was work we had already seen in the halls of Columbia.

Let me go see art and listen to an artist who highlights motherhood in her work. I thought while leaving my home.

After sharing that she dressed up to see us- to which we rubbernecked to scan her outfit- she pulled up her art on the screen.

When I became a mother, my art processing changed. I saw stories that needed to be told.

Motherhood opened up a new world to me of cartooning…

I love what I do and I love how I do it.

She showed us how she used her IPad and the significance of ProCreate and shared with us a graphic novel she was working on for 10 years.

Afterwards she asked us for our feedback about her work which I found most humbling considering her success.

I raised my hand and asked about the Black character and this led to a honest conversation about race and how to paint stories without being offensive to people or killing the authenticity of the story.

My friend, Paige, asked her what were some subjects she would stay away from when creating art which got the ‘that’s a good question’ comment from all over the room. This changed the conversation into a discussion about family and our duty to try and show family in good standing at all times. I listened to Professor Blake and Weinstein share how they protect their children from being exploited in their line of work. I thought:

Funny, that’s how mothers are. They have a strong sense of protection over their children. And even in the physical absence of a mother, I can still sense it. That protection itself becomes a part of your nature after a while.

Their rules to life itself begins to protect you.

My professor, Emily Blake, eventually started her lecture. She asked us to take out our projects we were working on.

Weinstein, who stayed for class, traveled to and fro and giving feedback on students’ work and ideas. Quite naturally after showing my work to my friends, we sat there giggling and speaking about anything from art to naming a baby.

Nah, babies need names not adjectives! I laughed. Can you imagine a baby named Resistance? I asked.

I actually like that name! That’s cool. Then we can shorten it to Res.

It was at the very end of class, when Lauren Weinstein made her way to our corner. She inquired about our work and even though everyone was packing up to go home, she sat next to me and asked me about my project.

My two friends who said they would wait for me left when they realized like me- this artist was truly interested in what I was thinking and doing.

I showed her my work and she inquired about the time period and gave me the idea to research the Liberator newspapers.

Look at the layout and read the ads or essays to see how your work should be laid down.

This was particularly useful for me as a writer and artist because it was the format that I had trouble with.

While looking at the images she laughed, I am from Boston and I know exactly where this is!

Her questions about the timeline made me think of how the work would be seen.

You’re integrating your students into the project…Your main focus is to show Black culture in Boston at the time and how schools got integrated.

She pulled out one of my student’s pieces from the pile and commented on it, making me change my mind of how I was planning to grade and present it:

I love this- this is like a map that this kid drew that gives you a sense …like this is the south…this is a plantation the student drew. I love this map.

Originally I thought, I’ll limit the pictures of plantations because enslavement in the north looked different from the south – or did it really look different? – but she highlighted that it was something about the kid’s thinking process and it shows through the map. The kid sees a plantation. This made me think of my over all goal which is to show how the scholars grasp this lesson on race and enslavement in the north during the early 17th Century.

Just like an artist, she left me with sound advice, keep the kids authentic voice in your project each step. You can even reread that childhood book- ( I can’t read it because I can’t remember it- I only remember the art. No matter how hard I try to remember the title or author….) for inspiration.

Just like a mother, she took time with me and listened to my ideas.

Of course I appreciated it but like all children there is always a part we forget. I can’t remember that book. Only the cat and maps!

I arrived home thinking of my Mom and spent the night searching the internet for the Liberator and the cat map book. Or was it a dog?!