People honor loved ones who have passed away in different ways. For Mira Mesa resident Lois Horowitz, that means completing a project her husband started years ago.
She spends up to six hours a day working in the front yard on a brightly-colored mosaic that covers almost every available surface. Its vivid patterns are made up of tiny tiles fashioned from broken dishes, mirrors, marbles and even toy cars.
She took on the project on after her husband Hal passed away five years ago.
"It's literally being done an inch at a time," she said while scraping at some tiny tiles embedded into a concrete wall in her garden. They make up a picture: red and orange flowers all in a row. On another wall, a giraffe. On a stone pillar, a cartoon monster face. On a bench, a colorful castle.
"People leave me goody bags in my yard with broken dishes," she said.
Her vivid patterns are made up of not just broken dishes, but mirrors, marbles, and even toy cars.
"My husband was an inveterate collector of stuff and he would go to yard sales and pick up little chotskies," she said.
So what would Hal think of the mosaic?
"I know exactly what he would say, he would say he loves the mosaic but not here because I've taken down his garden and that was his number one priority, so I think that would upset him," she said.
Horowitz, a retired city of San Diego librarian, finds pictures on the internet to inspire her work. She sometimes listens to late night talk shows on YouTube while she works, or just thinks through things she needs to do.
"You know when you have a passion about something, you follow your passion," she said. "I volunteer at the library and I do this, that's all I have time for. Visit my kids and my grandkids and collect broken dishes."
She has no idea when she will be done. Everywhere she looks there is more work to do: adding a design to another wall, cleaning some tiling she has already done and then there is the entire backyard.
"But it's coming along," she said with a sigh.
