For the past five months, I’ve written weekly about the catch phrases my mother commemorated in a series of cards she left in the hands of trusted family members for posthumous delivery to me. Most of the axioms were long-standing and oft-repeated with personal meanings for her, for me and for the rest of our family. Today’s headline is quite a departure from that theme.

Yes, the quote is from the 1977 film Star Wars, which was a family favorite long before the first exciting blockbuster became just one in a series of three, then six and soon to be nine episodes. Surprisingly, though, the line did not make it to Mom’s list until 2012, and it wasn’t because Obi-Wan Kenobi so masterfully used it to hoodwink a team of white-clad storm troopers. It was because I practically rolled on the floor laughing when a soap opera actor unexpectedly said it.

During an episode of General Hospital, smarmy Todd Manning (dryly played by Roger Howarth) was arguing over office space with another character. In the middle of the heated exchange, Todd suddenly waved his hand à la Obi-Wan and said …

These aren’t the droids you’re looking for.

His nemesis looked shocked for a moment and the argument resumed. It tickled me so much that I replayed the exchange several times and then saved the recording to watch again later. For the next year or so, either Mom or I would sometimes repeat the intergalactic phrase, but there was no underlying meaning. It was really just about remembering an amusing moment. I’m sure she wrote it in one of her posthumous cards for the same reason. A couple of months ago that changed for me.

My daughter, her two boys and I spent a November afternoon wandering around a Wizard World Comic Con in nearby Reno, Nevada. We met actors featured in a few of our favorite films and television shows, listened to Billy Dee Williams speak about his iconic Star Wars role as Lando Calrissian and browsed through a maze of vendor booths offering everything from tattoos to toys. A poster for sale in one of the stalls stopped me in my tracks. It was essentially a satire of the scenic motivational placards that modern-day managers like to display in their offices to promote teamwork, integrity and belief in success. Truth be told, I have one myself featuring a sailboat against a red sunset with the caption “Opportunity” beneath. The poster at the Comic Con was labeled “Regrets” and pictured a white-clad storm trooper sitting at a table with his head in his hands. The tagline read …

Those were the droids you were looking for.

I laughed heartily, took a picture of it and wondered for a few minutes whether to buy it. I ultimately did not bring it home, but the image was unforgettable. The more I pondered it, the more I realized that it was not just a punchline. For me, it brought the concept of looking for something full circle. So often in life we are presented with an opportunity, dismiss it because we don’t think it is truly what we were looking for, and regret it later. The unexpected is like a seed. Given the right attention, it takes root and bears surprising blessings. I call both of my children surprises (not accidents) for that very reason.

My 12-year cohabitation with my mother, and our eventual relationship as caregiver and care receiver, was an epic surprise. In my September 7, 2014, column titled “For However Long Forever Lasts,” I recounted the events that led to our arrangement. As noted then, we hadn’t planned to live together. We hadn’t planned that I would be the daughter to assume the lead responsibility in her final years. Nevertheless, that’s how life rolled out. I was rewarded with a deeper relationship with my mother than I could have ever imagined. We both learned important lessons from our respective roles, and we parted with few, if any, regrets. It was a blessing that I recognized this unexpected gift when it was given instead of realizing it only in hindsight.

Within that larger gift were many smaller ones.  One of the most extraordinary is that I developed a deep appreciation for fine art.

Mom was always a creative soul. As children, my sister, brother and I sported some of the best Halloween costumes in the neighborhood. When I was a teenager, Mom sewed my prom dress and painted cartoon-character posters for my student council campaign that were so clever that classmates stole them off the walls. Throughout my life, I witnessed her talent in mediums that ranged from clay sculpture to macramé and from charcoal drawings to oil paintings. When she retired and moved to the Oregon coast, she happily painted big yellow sunflowers on her old metal shed, hand-painted custom sweatshirts for everyone and fancifully colored Easter eggs each year without fail. Yet, even with that up-close and personal exposure to her creative spirit, I can’t say that I truly appreciated fine art until Mom and I took a four-day vacation to Las Vegas in 2005.

We planned our mini-break to coincide with a concert featuring country singer Kenny Chesney (for me) and an exhibit of classic impressionist paintings (for Mom). The concert was every bit as good as I expected it to be, but the memory has since blended with images from dozens of other shows I’ve attended over the years.  The exhibit, on the other hand, was akin to a Divine experience. Although I wasn’t particularly interested in seeing the paintings myself, I was glad to wheel Mom through the gallery. I didn’t anticipate that gazing at original canvases by the likes of Vincent Van Gogh and Pierre-Auguste Renoir would turn out to be awe-inspiring.

The defining moment of our gallery visit was when I found myself standing breathless in front of Claude Monet’s 1886 Meadow at Giverny. Clearly seeing the dashes and dabs of the artist’s paintbrush and the vibrant color choices that captured the lights and shadows of the landscape was nothing short of surreal. I could picture myself beside him in that meadow, insects buzzing about and a soft breeze rustling through the trees, while he repeatedly touched his brush to his palette and then to the emerging canvas. To this day, I am amazed that a long-dead Frenchman could reach through time, space and the commotion of the Las Vegas Strip to touch my heart in such a profound and lasting way.

The gallery gift shop didn’t have a print of Meadow at Giverny in stock or it would be hanging on my wall right now. No matter. A print would be little more than a two-dimensional souvenir to remind me of a dazzling, once-in-a-lifetime sight. A better souvenir is that the unexpected epiphany I experienced in that indelible moment is a seed that has taken root and blessed me with new vision.

When Mom left this world, she left me some of her finest artistic creations. Regardless of the mediums, they all are unique and beautiful. However, I study the paintings with a more keen eye. The subtle differences in color and the variations in brush strokes that she used to capture the contours of a face, the pattern of a housedress or the shadows on a rose petal are a genuine source of amazement. Like Monet, Mom is able to reach out to me through space and time, and I can transport myself to the moment she touched brush to canvas. With this comes an intimacy that ordinary photograph albums and mementoes can never match. Had we not visited the impressionist exhibit during our 2005 mini-break, I doubt I would be enjoying this heightened perspective.

Sometime after Mom died, I began to entertain the idea of trying my own hand at painting. Not long ago I finally surrendered to the cosmic nudge and bought a set of pastels and a drawing pad. I feel destined to dabble if only to better understand the idea of blending colors on paper. A few nights ago, my husband and I watched with interest as the film “The Monuments Men” recounted the Nazi theft and the Allied Forces’ recovery of millions of works of art; perhaps including some of the very paintings Mom and I viewed together. In recent days I’ve found myself surfing the Internet looking for the current resting place of Meadow at Giverny and dreaming of visiting Monet’s home in northern France. Ten years ago I would have scoffed at the notion that fine art would ever ignite my imagination in the way that it has. In a manner of speaking, art appreciation was never a droid I was looking for. I thank my lucky stars that my mind was open to this unexpected development because the seed took root and grew into a beautiful blessing. Indeed …

Those were the droids I was looking for.