Watercolor Paintings #16: RIP Relly Carpio

Life, Paintings, Watercolor  /   /  By Rica Espiritu  /  52 views

When I heard that Relly died I was stunned. I can imagine the grief my friend felt. I couldn’t feel anything except pain – her pain.

My friend, her daughters  and brother gave him 64 cycles of CPR. She felt him lift his hands and saw that his fingers was turning black. He signed for her to stop. He looked at his daughter and his wife, and after giving the sign for “I feel the love”, he gave her that look of “I am making a decision that you will not like”. He closed his eyes and stopped breathing, while he was still being given CPR. They stopped. A wail as heard. The sound of love lost.

I never met the guy. But I know how much he loved my friend and her daughters. Theirs is a love story nobody would expect would happen (they’re both gamers). It is written in tears and blood.

How do I paint a guy I’ve never met?

I was looking for a pic of Relly everywhere. When I looked at his fb page I was surprised by the number of knives he had. He had more knives than selfie pics. Felt like looking at showroom for blades. I couldn’t find good pic so I settled on the one that kept popping out of my news feed. No, really. It was strange that I kept seeing this pic.

relly2

As I painted, I prayed that it would be ‘good’. Not just in likeness. I wanted it to be a painting that Alma could go, “this is my Relly”.

Turned out, according to Alma, this was his favorite photo. I could tell that she loved it. I was happy.

Thank you Relly bear for answering my prayers. Thank you.

Relly-72dpi

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