TRESSA'S COLORING PAGES. Funky coloring pages for the wild at heart

TRESSA’S COLORING PAGES

Funky coloring pages for wild at heart divas
August 25, 2015 | Shari Mallinson

A couple of years ago my husband’s 93 year old grandmother tripped, fell and broke her hip.
She was transferred out of her condo and, after a lengthy hospital stay to fix her hip up, put in a long term care facility. Up until that point she had been the feistiest most amazing woman I had ever met and continued to fill that spot in my heart.

Tressa out-walked, and almost ran over, most people she encountered on her daily walks. She cooked her own healthy meals, indulged in a glass of wine on Thanksgiving and Christmas and relished her daily rum-soaked raisins she made sure to put on her morning oatmeal.

Tressa enjoying our Spring garden c. 2014.

(She REALLY enjoyed her wine and *special* raisins!) Mostly I admired Tressa because she was sharp as a whip, clever, had the best comebacks and she had an amazing past. (She helped build planes during the war, was one of the first psychiatric nurses in Canada before there even was such a thing on the radar and she had traveled the world.) I often forgave her hilariously shocking political incorrectness and laughed at her F-Bombs. Mostly because I knew that even though she was 93 and could barely muster up to 4’8″ she would kick my ass into tomorrow for talking back to her. She knew how to live life to the fullest and she knew how to do it on her terms.

Once Tressa was placed in long term care, unable to be as active as she had previously been, she became depressed. Her spark dulled and her cognitive abilities declined.

Somehow, somewhere, she wound up with a coloring book and with it her former spark returned. I watched as she returned to life. Her face lit up and she burst with exuberance talking about her new favorite pass-time. Yep, you got it art and a kids coloring book did that. From then on she was brought book after book of coloring pages which she meticulously colored and displayed on her walls. Once her walls were filled with various wonders of the coloring book world we started taking them home as she started making plans to sell her magnificent works of art.

Tressa (R), her twin Bernie (L) and Kickin It page.

At the time I had thought of creating new and more interesting pages for her to color but I was suffering from autoimmune issues, was exhausted and needed to conserve any and all energy.
I promised myself once I felt better I’d create coloring pages worthy enough for Tressa to color. Then on a crisp, cool night before Christmas Tressa went to sleep and quietly slipped away.

She woke only once during the night complaining of feeling a little sick. She never got a chance to delight in the coloring pages I would create for her but I feel more than warm and fuzzy every time I recall the joy she felt and the way her eyes lit up while creating her art.

Now that I’m as perky as ever and back to my old, unique, pain-in-the keister, creative self I’ve created a bunch of coloring pages I feel belong to Tressa.

In this spirit I have the honor of presenting to you, as a gift, one of the pages I’ve created in memory of Tressa. I hope you enjoy the page as much as I do and I’m sure Tressa would have!

Click on the “Download your Gift” image below or on THIS LINK to get Tressa’s gift to you OR click HERE to browse my selection of downloadable coloring pages in the store.