Covering “Blue Christmas” – For Our Dawny
This is me singing a cover of Blue Christmas as a digital holiday card. I decided to share this today in honor of our Dawny, who passed away a couple of years ago – today is the anniversary of her passing. It was one of our Dawny’s favorite Christmas songs. In fact, she’s the one who asked me to make a recording singing this song.
I dislike the YouTube set up. There don’t seem to be any parameters for controlling the display of your movies on the system. This was a small format .mov file, but YouTube auto displays at twice the size, so all my lovely images are pixelated.
I drew this portrait of Dawny from one of my favorite photos of her. I love the photo because it captures so much of who she was, especially her kind eyes and that ever present mischievous one-of-a-kind Dawn-smile.
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Colored pencil drawing, c. June 2017, by D. Denise Dianaty
This is the Olin Mills photo from which I drew the portrait above
This is one of my favorite pictures of our Dawny before she became ill, again, because it so aptly captures that delightful mischievousness that was so much of who she was.
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This is a poem I’ve shared before, which I composed in tribute for our Dawny after she passed. Joseph is her young son.
Joseph’s Angel
Daughter, sister, wife, mother… friend
She gave loyalty for loyalty to the end
Her flame-kissed hair shinin’ like a halo
That gently teasing turn of her lips, just so
Losing Dawny cuts deep to our hearts
A little piece o’sunshine torn from hearts
With her bright laughing eyes
And those one of a kind Dawn smiles
O Lord, we all need Joseph’s Angel
Givin’ us reason to laugh in the middle o’hell
Joseph’s Angel, mom to the fiercest degree
Gone from us now with the Lord to be
Laughing eyes dimmed in pain never more
Gone home, sharin’ stories on the golden shore
Lookin’ down on her Joe with hopeful sighs
In our Lord’s bosom Our Dawny now lies
With her bright laughing eyes
And those one of a kind Dawn smiles
O Lord, we all need Joseph’s Angel
Givin’ us reason to laugh in the middle o’hell
We see her now with little tricksy pranks
Laughter for all in Heaven’s ranks
We’ll miss Joseph’s Angel while we rejoice
God called her forth with His wise choice
To with the Heavenly Hosts her stories regale
Dawny’s gone Home, made new, hearty and hale
With her bright laughing eyes
And those one of a kind Dawn smiles
O Lord, we all need Joseph’s Angel
Givin’ us reason to laugh in the middle o’hell
I never imagined such a world or day
Where she wasn’t just a phone call away
Joseph’s Angel always found the laughter
In every situation of the joke she was master
She told our stories, rendered humorously
Showed us not to take ourselves so seriously
With her bright laughing eyes
And those one of kind Dawn smiles
O Lord, we all need Joseph’s Angel
Givin’ us reason to laugh in the middle o’Hell
RIP Dawn Dell Dever Connell – my sister and my friend. [11 July 1967–30 November 2016]
© 23 July 2017, by D. Denise Dianaty
This is a snapshot of Dawny and Joe
sorry for your loss.
great voice. :)
Thank you.
Am so sorry for your lost , life can be so cruel at times and seems to be the best are taken away from us all the time i am sure Dawny will be looking down at you with a big happy smile :)
Your poem and your singing is amazing what a beautiful talent you have.
Thanks so much for the compliment and especially for your kind words.
Most welcome my friend :)
So you can sing too! Amazing.
I feel a better question would be, what can you not do?
Thanks.
Oh, I have lots of talents. I had voice lessons and choir study all through middle and high school; I actually started college off studying music. I went to art school before transferring to a university where I graduated with a degree in fashion design. I went on to study graphic design in grad school. I have over 25 years of experience in graphic design, primarily in print media; It’s something I always did as a kind of side gig from the time I was a teenager; after grad school, I worked in magazine publication for local interests. I had planned to go back to work in design after my son went to school; but I became disabled before he was in school full time (preschool through kindergarten were never full school days).
My poetry is something that was always there with my art – I wrote poems from ideas for artworks and notes about artworks, as well as jotting poems down in a diary full of childhood trauma and teen angst. But, actually pursuing writing is something I came to rather late in life.
Yeah… I’m pretty decent at so many varied art forms. None of them pay, though.
Wow this is so great to know and my talent theory of you just got confirmed.
If you don't mind can I know what happened?
To my sister? She died from a very aggressive form of stomach cancer.
sorry to hear that dear friend. I also meant to ask about that line I quoted of your comment.
Oh. Sorry. I have a constellation of numerous health and mobility issues. I’m often too ill to be able to work. Plus, I have mobility issues with my hips, my knee, and one of my ankles. In addition, I have numerous allergy and asthma triggers that forces people in my orbit to curtail their own hygiene and scent products, as well as smoking.
I can’t be around people with smoking residue in their clothes, hair, or in soft furnishings at all – for example, I can’t visit my either of my surviving sisters (both of whom smoke) at all without becoming sick for days or weeks afterward. An employer just isn’t going to employ someone for whom every other member of the organization has to upend their lives to accommodate. Seriously, no perfume or cologne. No air fresheners. No hairspray. No scented hair products. No scented soaps or lotions. No ammonia cleaning products. No scented cleaning products – pretty much just Windex. I can’t even be around potpourri. There are very few perfumed products that don’t cause a problem for me.
I also have several food allergies.
Is it a genetic condition? Looks like a family problem.
Sorry that I ask too many questions and don't lnow much about things. Also don't really know how to reply but wish all the good for yoy. But you are like this high IQ google and I learn so much from you and get my inspirations from.
Have you ever given an IQ test or something like that?
I’ve had IQ and other ability tests. I score very high on them. They don’t put a living in the bank, though.
Is it a genetic condition? Looks like a family problem.
Sorry that I ask too many questions and don't lnow much about things. Also don't really know how to reply but wish all the good for yoy. But you are like this high IQ google and I learn so much from you and get my inspirations from.
Have you ever given an IQ test or something like that?
Dear Artzonian, thanks for using the #ArtzOne hashtag. Your work is valuable to the @ArtzOne community. Quote of the week: Art, freedom and creativity will change society faster than politics. -Victor Pinchuk
Firstly, you are very talented.
Secondly, I couldn't find in the dictionary the meaning of the word Dawny. Could you tell me?
Thank you very much.
My deceased sister’s name was “Dawn” – it means the start of the new day or sunrise. Her full given name was “Dawn Dell” – “Dell” means a small, welcoming valley among the trees. Her name figuratively alluded to the “dawn of a new day in the dell.” We called her “Dawny” as an endearing form of her name.
Many thanks. I know what dawn is but I was confused because of the y in the end 🙏🤗
I'm so sorry for your loss, my dear Denise. I believe she was an amazing person. Life is so unfair sometimes.
The poem and the song are wonderful. I'm sure Dawny smiles wherever she is now. 🙂
Thank you.
It’s been two years, yet I still feel this Dawny-shaped hole in the world. I never imagined a world without our Dawny just a phone call away… just a few hundred miles over the horizon…
Sad, very sad but you must continue. You owe it to her. She would be upset if she knew how sad you are.
She really would be upset. She was the one who always made everyone laugh – especially at ourselves. She was a pull-you-bootstraps-up and get on with it kind of person.