On Holy Saturday, Myralee Machol, of Syosset, was babysitting for her son David Bretherton’s daughter, 18-month old Dovie, and took her to a Target department store for a treat.

           “I decided to buy her a DVD to keep at my house,” she said, “and I told her to pick any one she wanted.  There were literally hundreds to choose from.  She chose one of The Walt Disney Company’s Baby Einstein series.  It was called Baby Wordsworth, and it had a picture of a cat on the jacket.  She evidently liked the cat.  We bought it and went home.

            “I’m sitting in the house, watching it with her.  The video depicts all aspects of a house, with the members of the family in it, teaching kids the names of objects, like ‘bed,’ ‘desk,’ ‘chair,’ ‘painting,’ ‘bookcase,’ ‘plant,’ ‘garden.’ In the ‘bedroom’ section, lo and behold, a painting on the wall pops up on the screen, a painting of a young boy wrapped in an American Indian blanket. 

             “My breath just stopped,” said Machol. “I froze. Then I froze the picture, and I yelled, ‘That’s my Ricky! That’s my boy!’ I jumped up.  Poor Dovie must have thought her Nana had gone nuts.”

             Flashback:

             Myralee Machol’s first husband was Norman Bretherton.  Both were graduates of the C.W. Post Campus of Long Island University.  Norman was the youngest-ever head buyer for corporate JCPenney, when, in 1971, on his way home from work, he was killed in a crash on the Long Island Expressway in Hicksville.  He was survived by his wife and by two children, Linda, then 3, and David, then 3 months old.

             Five years later, Myralee remarried.  Herb Machol was a renowned sports publicist and, although Myralee didn’t know it right away, a friend of Norman’s while a student at C.W. Post.  “I never thought I would have another husband,” Machol said, “let alone have another child.  But Herb, who is the only father my children have any real memory of, also became the father of my third child, Ricky…Rick, he insisted, as he matured.”         

A 1995 graduate of Syosset High School, Rick attended Bowling Green State University, majoring in sports marketing.  On March 7, 1997, he and a friend were on their way home for spring break. Just after they crossed into Sharon, Pa., from Youngstown, Ohio, the friend, from Staten Island, lost control of the car, which then crossed into the path of a tractor-trailer.  The Machols drove all night to be by Rick’s side.  He died later in the day as a result of his injuries.

            “A beautiful young man, my 6-foor-4 son, with a big smile,” Machol said wistfully.

             When Ricky was 9 years old, he was playing in the driveway of a neighbor, whom I have known and corresponded with (but never met) for 22 years, GG Kopilak.  (Google GG Kopilak, or go to http://mysite.verizon.net/ggkopilak). 

            Kopilak, at the time, had switched from a series of still-life paintings and was experimenting with portraits, notably a series of portraits of people awash in the light of a nearby window (“People in Windows”).

             Kopilak’s youngest son, Fred, now 36, and David Bretherton were inseparable in those years, and David’s little brother, Ricky Machol, often tagged along with them.  Kopilak recalls looking outside one bright afternoon and seeing Ricky playing alone in her driveway.  She asked if he would like to sit for a painting (and have something to eat, which both mothers agree was the way to get Ricky to sit).

             Kopilak sat him near a window.  She wrapped a Native American blanket around his shoulders and went to work.  She called the result Mexican Morning.

            When the portrait popped up on the TV screen, Machol didn’t know exactly how to feel - elated or invaded.  She wanted to know how it got there, though.  She put on Sesame Street for Dovie and ran to the telephone, calling various numbers for the Disney Corporation.  It was the day before Easter.  Nobody answered. “I left messages,” she said.  “How did you get this?” I think I just needed to vocalize what I had seen and felt.  I went upstairs and e-mailed Disney and cc’d GG.

             “When my son came to pick up Dovie,’ Machol said, “I said to him, ‘Ricky’s on Baby Einstein.’  He said, ‘Ma, stop it.’ I said, ‘Put the DVD in, and tune it to track 8.’  He does, and he says, ‘That’s Ricky!’

             “With that, the phone rings.  It’s GG, saying, ‘Are you mad at me?’ By that time, I was calm.  I said, ‘Why would I be mad?’ She had looked through her records and found that she had sold copies of pictures, years ago, to a company called SuperStock. Disney evidently was one of the companies that bought Ricky’s picture from them.

             “Two weeks later, I got a beautiful letter from someone in the Baby Einstein division of Disney. They sympathized with my sorrow.  They asked would I please accept a token gift, another DVD for the baby to watch.  I thanked them, and I thanked them for giving Ricky his moment of fame.  He always wanted to be famous. 

             “I thought of all the DVDs I nTarget that day,” said Machol. “What were the chances? I said to my daughter, ‘Why did we pick that once?’ She said, ‘Maybe Ricky just wanted to say, “Hi.”’”