he words painted on Merissa Rash’s window may be short and sweet, but the message couldn’t be any more appropriate during the coronavirus pandemic.

That’s exactly what the stay-at-home mother intended when she decided to paint her window at 308 Bridge St. in Lehighton with three simple words.

In this together.

Rash, who paints for her family and friends, and also etches on glass, said she got the idea in large part from what she saw on Facebook.

“Everything’s negative, negative; I couldn’t handle it anymore,” Rash said. “I thought I’m going to do something that’s cheerful; not too much, but hopefully make people smile.”

Rash’s two children, Geovani, 8, and Winter, 5, are charter-schooled.

“There’s a great amount of people that beep, wave or scream and actually like it,” she said. “I get a lot of social media saying, ‘I saw your window, I love it, It makes me feel good.’?”

Rash said that for her, painting is a form of healing.

“It keeps my anxiety low,” she said. “Art therapy.”

Rash explained where her passion for painting came from.

“I went to art school, just kind of never stopped painting,” she said. “I just started making paintings for people, started etching on glass for my pictures.”

Rash said that while this particular drawing was part of her monthly window decorating, it represented an even stronger message.

“We’re all in this together; it’s going to take everyone,” she said. “Hopefully we’ll all come together and smile, because it could be worse.”

Above all else, Rash said she hopes the words painted on her window achieve one particular mission.

“I hope someone can smile from it,” she said.