Drawing the Art

Mira had always seen the world a little differently. Where others saw walls, she saw canvases. Where others passed shadows without thought, she saw dancing shapes waiting to be brought to life in charcoal or ink. Her notebooks overflowed with sketches—faces she never met, places she never visited, dreams she never spoke aloud.

But for the last three months, her pencils had been still.

After her father passed away suddenly in late autumn, the color seemed to bleed out of her world. Even her most vibrant markers couldn’t bring life to a blank page. The art that once poured out of her like breath now felt buried beneath grief.

"You have to draw," her younger brother Eli said one morning, pushing a crumpled page toward her. He was only ten, but he always knew when she needed a nudge. The page was a messy sketch he had done of their father. His proportions were off, one ear was bigger than the other, but the crooked smile was perfect.

“He always smiled like that when we made pancakes,” Eli added, his voice barely above a whisper.

Mira swallowed hard. “Yeah,” she said, brushing a tear from her cheek. “Yeah, he did.”

She pinned the drawing on the wall above her desk.

That night, the silence in her room felt louder than usual. The moonlight stretched across her desk like an invitation. She sat down, opened her sketchbook, and stared at the blank page for what felt like hours.

Then, almost instinctively, she drew a single line. Then another. Her hand hesitated, then moved again. She didn’t know what she was drawing—at first it was just shapes, arcs, shadows. But soon, an image began to form.

It was her father, standing in the kitchen, flipping pancakes, his face lit with joy. Beside him stood Eli, holding a bowl twice his size, batter smeared across his chin. Mira was there too, sitting on the counter, laughing at something her father had just said. Her own laughter seemed to echo as she drew.

It wasn’t perfect. The shading was rough, the lines unsteady. But it was true.

That night, she didn’t sleep. She drew until sunrise. Not just her father, but memories—sun-drenched days at the lake, rainy afternoons with board games, quiet evenings with movies and popcorn. She poured her grief, her love, her memories into each stroke.

The next day, she showed Eli.

“Whoa,” he whispered, flipping through the pages. “It’s like... he’s still here.”

Mira nodded. “I think... this is how I keep him with me.”

Every day after school, Eli would come into her room and ask, “What did you draw today?” And every day, Mira would have something new: sometimes a full sketch, other times just a moment—a smile, a hand reaching for a coffee mug, a pair of sneakers by the door.

Eventually, she started adding color again. At first, just hints—a blue shirt, a red mug. But then the whole world of her drawings came to life. Her grief hadn’t gone, not really, but it had changed. Drawing helped her carry it.

Months passed. Then one morning, her art teacher approached her after class.

“Mira,” she said, holding up one of Mira’s latest sketches. “Have you ever thought about submitting your work to the memorial art exhibit?”

Mira hesitated. The idea of sharing something so personal made her stomach flutter. “I don’t know if I’m ready.”

The teacher smiled gently. “Art isn’t always about being ready. Sometimes, it’s about being honest.”

So Mira submitted her favorite drawing—her father in the kitchen, the three of them smiling, surrounded by light. She titled it “The Morning We Laughed.”

The day of the exhibit, people stopped and stared at her piece. Some smiled. Others wiped their eyes. One woman leaned in and whispered to her, “It reminds me of my dad.”

That night, Mira and Eli walked home in silence, the stars scattered across the sky.

“Do you think he saw it?” Eli asked.

“I hope so,” Mira said. “But even if he didn’t... I think he’d be proud.”

And for the first time in a long time, the world didn’t seem so empty. It was still broken in places, sure—but in those cracks, something beautiful was blooming.