We Were Enough

Some places hold you long after you have left them.

This painting is one such place — a meadow our family owned, bordered by three fruit trees and a fence that, in reality, was made of stones topped with thorns to keep the farm animals from the garden. But a child of seven does not want thorns in her paradise. In this painting, as in memory reshaped by love, the fence is gentle and wooden, the kind that keeps you safe without drawing blood.

While my parents tended the garden, my sister and I collected flowers from the grassy stretch near the fruit trees, wove wreaths for our hair, climbed the branches to reach mulberries and plums and apples. We were four: my mother, my father, my sister, and I.

We were complete. We were enough.

My mother passed away twenty years ago. This painting is an ode to the moments before that loss — to the particular wholeness of a family gathered in a meadow on an ordinary afternoon, unaware of how precious the ordinary was. The fence still stands. The three trees remain. And in the safety they offer, she is still there.

Medium: Acrylic on canvas
Dimensions: W: 61cm x H: 76.2cm (24 x 30 in)
Year: 2025

Original work. One of six paintings in the Meadows collection. Arrives with certificate of authenticity and full care instructions.

"We were four. We were complete. We were enough." — Silvana Gorgiev