Gentle and soft spoken, Merl is a long-term and very much loved guest of The Women’s Room. She has continued to visit and get support from Friends In Deed during many years of housing insecurity and serious illness.
Merl particularly enjoys the art activities that TWR provides. We have often said that art is as much therapy as it is recreation for our guests, and we think this is especially true for Merl. The image shown here is painted from a real-life event.
Her paintings are rich in detail and deeply meaningful and, if you ask Merl about them, she will take great joy in explaining them. The picture tells the story of an event in Merl’s life when a tire came off her car, and a random stranger made the effort to follow her home then drive back to look for the tire and return it to her. It’s a simple story but one that is clearly important to Merl, because she chose to explore the subject in her art.
We cannot know why the story is so charged with meaning for her, but speculate that perhaps it is to do with this unsolicited act of kindness being experienced by someone whose life has perhaps not received as much kindness as it deserves.