Elevating Paradise (1984) Ritchie Sinclair


Elevating Paradise
Ritchie Sinclair 
1984, oil on canvas, 18" x 36"
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This painting was created to commemorate the birth of my son, Sean, in 1984. The brilliant purity of his sweet presence, still glowing in his mother, left me in awe. With no way to adequately express their beauty I left their features undefined. 

My eldest son, Chris, witnesses the dawn while dark clouds foreshadow our path ahead. While in hospital their mother contracted a deadly spinal/brain virus called encephalitis. After multiple seizures she fell into a delirium and in the weeks to follow she flirted with death while neurosurgeons shot blindly in the dark with experimental anti-viral drugs.

In a last gasp effort I received permission from her doctors and the hospital to bring in Ellen Lipsius, a former president of the Acupuncture Society of Canada. My wife was treated to electrified acupuncture in her hospital room on a daily basis after visiting hours. After her treatments I would boil poultices to apply to her spine to remove anti-viral drug toxins. Within two weeks she was well enough to come home. Six months bed-rest and a strict macrobiotic diet left her in perfect health. 

I was later told by a doctor that she was one of three women that had somehow contracted the encephalitis virus, and the only one to recover. My sons, now in their late 20s, have been blessed throughout their lives, but the recovery of their ultra-cool mother was their greatest blessing. They were too young to know what they almost lost. Selfishly, I fought desperately for her survival because I couldn't imagine raising our princes without her. I will forever be grateful that I never had to.