A Fragile Hero

My parents were cleaners that worked day and night in a restaurant, they didn’t have much time to spend with me and my brother until we were much older. Every Christmas me and my brother would have our eyes on this robot toy and idolize it day and night hoping to have one in our household one day. Long story short… I never got that toy. The irony is the scumbags and low lives that I despised that didn’t get us the toy was the real superheroes.

They broke every bone in their body to feed me, they put their face on the ground to make way for me, they battled everyone that put me down when people said I can’t do it. They restarted their lives 3 times and raised two kids to have a higher and better education in a country of freedom and safety.

I never saw this side of their story until now. We went through many fights during the year that caused major cracks to our relationship, but as we talk more we found love and understanding, we embrace these flaws and these were the golden years that made me who I was.

Notes for drawing: Chinese porcelain records history, it’s also a symbol of fragility. Patterns speak of unity and putting differences aside to combine objects into something bigger. Flowers and waves speak of highs and lows in life, sometimes things have to dye to really see growth happening. The gold cracks speak of Kintsugi a Japanese pottery repairing method that embraces the beauty of flaws and missing pieces in life and brings it together with stronger with gold.  The toy is bigger than a human to give scale to an adult’s childhood dreams, the toy was purposely painted bigger than the paper can handle… not showing the full picture but pans your eyes for imagination in the empty spaces. The golden halo makes this an idolized object.