The short version of the story is simple.
Denise Dickeson wants a painting.
It’s a painting she and her best friend, Gary, bought at a benefit auction, the Lincoln woman says. A nude figure — androgenous with hair like tree roots and fingers as long as knitting needles reaching toward a red light.
Denise volunteers at the Unitarian Church and, in 2015, she helped organize an art-themed fundraiser there for a young man with cancer.
Gary was already sick and he couldn’t attend. But when he saw a photo of that painting, he had to have it. He gave her some money and she added cash of her own when the bidding soared above Gary's funds.
The painting hung in his living room and then in his room at hospice until he died last summer.
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Denise isn’t sure where it has landed.
The long version is why it matters.
Denise and Gary met at The Pet Ark nearly 40 years ago. He worked in the fish department, she was in puppies and kitties.
They hit it off.
They were young then, and everyone was close at the locally owned shop at Normal Boulevard and South Street. Arkies, they called themselves. When Denise married a co-worker, the rest of the employees chipped in and bought them a microwave.
For a spell, Gary and Denise were neighbors in Havelock and she’d walk over on Friday nights with a pound of M&Ms and a 2-liter bottle of Pepsi Free.
“We’d sit and watch people go down Havelock Avenue.â€
Their friendship survived the end of their pet store tenure. Gary went off to work at floral shops and eventually in procurement at St. Elizabeth. Denise married and was widowed, married and divorced, married and moved away and came back, divorced once more.
“I think we were kindred spirits,†Denise says. “As we went through life, changing partners, we helped each other through the loss of those partners.â€
Gary was openly gay, Denise says. “We called each other Will and Grace.â€
Life was not easy for Denise. She found herself stuck in abusive relationships. She became addicted to pain pills. She’s been sober for years, but she has PTSD and the bouts of anxiety that go with it.
For the last 15 years, Denise and Gary called each other every night.
“We were each other’s watchers and keepers,†she says. “Each other’s safety net.â€
Gary was funny, she says. Dry-witted and kind. He had a degree in botany and knew everything about horticulture. He studied Greek and Roman mythology and Egyptology.
They thought alike. He understood her.
“They spoke every day without exception,†said mutual friend Mark Miller. “She’d be at my house and she’d say, ‘I have to call Gary.’ She would stop whatever she was doing.â€
During those nightly phone calls, Gary and Denise talked about their days. In those last years, they talked about that painting.
After the fundraiser in 2015, Gary pondered for days where to hang it.
“He called it ‘The Green Lady,’†Denise says. “He wanted it to be somewhere he could see her all the time.â€
Gary was a lifelong smoker. He had COPD. The disease kept him close to home and when he took his breathing treatments, he sat at the kitchen table of his apartment with The Green Lady nearby.
He dreamed about her, Denise says. She represented something important to him.
“She had roots. She was one with the Earth; it went right with his beliefs.â€
When Gary died last June, Denise was at a conference for the Unitarian Church. “I cried for about two weeks. I had a lot of trouble.â€
She cried again when she discovered the painting was gone. Gary always told her he wanted her to have it, Mark said.
“Denise is very sentimental. It doesn’t matter if it is worth $5 or $5,000, it’s just a reminder of Gary.â€
A few weeks ago, Denise posted a picture of The Green Lady on her Facebook page.
Have you seen this painting? I’m heartsick over the loss...Please help...
She is willing to make a trade for the painting, she says, something of value to the owner.
It’s hard to put into words what that piece of art means, she says. It’s a link to her friend. It’s something to hold onto.
“I would give anything to have that painting back.â€
She can’t have Gary back. She can’t pick up the phone and hear that voice, talk about her day, gossip with her best friend.
“The hardest thing since then is I don’t have him to call in the evenings,†she says. “I just miss him in my life.â€