Forward: A deeply personal piece, I have woven into this quilt my own life experiences. This quilt, while unique to me, represents the patchwork inside all of us. Some days I struggle with the loss and tragedy that has touched my life. And some days it’s hard to see the good through the bad. But we must remind ourselves that in the end, it is both the light and the dark, in the struggles and the successes, the tears and the laughter that build the beautiful masterpiece that we are. I am learning to love myself, in all of my different shades. And this piece was an exercise in doing that through writing. I encourage you to reflect on what your quilt would look like and learn to love yourself too, in all your many colors.
Outside, rain smacks against the window panes. Sitting in her chair, her wrinkled hands guide the shiny needle, poking the soft edge, then pulling the thin white thread through the colorful panes of fabric that lie folded on her steady lap. As she sews, she reflects…
Her eyes scan the fabric for a pattern. Is there a pattern? She holds in her lap and in her heart, a patchwork of progress, experiences, accomplishments and hardships that have unfolded over a lifetime. Each event, each square, occurred separately in her life and when stacked in a pile on the table, felt solitary and unrelated. And yet seeing them now, in her old age, side-by-side and top-to-bottom, she realizes that the thread in her hands is not the only thing that ties them together.
Olive and white strips with a silver ring filled with burnt orange felt- the colors of the trailer she was born in and the mud pies that she learned to make from the clay outside. It was there, from her very beginnings, that she learned how to make-do and find joy in simplicity. And the move was her first experience in feeling uncomfortable in order to make positive change, at age five.
Change is easier with magic. She was always looking for magical things- like fireflies and genuinely kind people. Royal blue, with stars, the outline of a jar and little black and yellow fireflies embroidered within its lines. Next to it, a frog, patiently plopped with a subtle smile. The flying creatures that she watched decline in numbers over her lifetime, brought magic to the evenings of her childhood, and lit-up both her jar and her inner joy. The jumping amphibians that she chased as a girl, became an exotic pet and then a tattoo on her back…and then a favorite pitcher and candlestick set on the dining room table that she used to entertain her guests. She loved frogs!
And she loved to entertain- something that wasn’t celebrated in the home she grew-up in, because anxiety oftentimes overruled joy. So she had to make a busy and colorful square with a cake and confetti for all the parties she was denied as a child and overcompensated by throwing as an adult. Birthdays, baby showers, weddings, even seasonal changes- her parties utilized her organized and energetic nature to satisfy both her drive to create beauty and to share joy.
Animals also brought her joy. Her Dad taught her to love and respect all creatures-even snakes. When she was a girl, she thought she’d grow up to be a veterinarian. She wanted to help animals that were hurt or sick. She’d grow up to teach her own children the same values and have a house full of pets. There was never a time that she didn’t have several. So with tiny, shaped pieces of material, in various hues of brown, she created a square for a lifetime of unconditional, furry, scaly, love.
And next to the mud pie, the frog and the pets, a powder blue square with a white house and a tree for the childhood home, she at first hated, but grew to love. Pragmatically perched across the street from her school, with the best climbing tree a kid could ask for, it survived both a house fire and a multitude of challenges. That house held her bed, her pets buried in the yard, her secrets and her screams, her dreams and her nightmares for 15 years. The house that she both ran to and ran from, taught her both what she wanted to be and what she didn’t.
A dark gray square with a single candle. “There’s a candle burning”… sings the Aerosmith song of child loss, “Fallen Angels.” Her family of six crumbled to a family of five when as a teen, her brother ended his life too soon. And it burned a hole in her heart where her faith once resided. Out of the darkness she crept and many a survivor she ministered from her own painfully, preventable loss. And while his flame of existence he might have snuffed, the threads of his influence weaved the most intricate pattern and spelled compassion and understanding on her soul.
An emerald green square, for a pop of her favorite color and birthstone, a symbol of her Irish roots, the color of frogs… And the color of mental illness- that took so much more than a brother from her; but became a passion that she fought for fervently. And top-stitched on the green, a purple and turquoise semi-colon, a lovely cool color pallet that appealed to her on the days when she felt low, and the symbol of suicide prevention.
The turquoise of the semi-colon almost matched the teal hearts sewn atop the solid black square. One tiny heart for each time hers was broken by another “me too,” her own and the children and women she loved so dearly. She wished she was left with more open space and her heart and hands grew tired of cutting out the same shape. And yet she knew the experiences came to define a large part of her- the power that grew from her pain and the anger that energized her fight for change. Her gray head nodded as she thought of the progress made by her gender and education on the word “consent”.
The black background and the fight for women complimented the dark red square, that she proudly embellished with a black tassel and a gold RN- for the day she danced across the stage with a diploma in her hand, past the instructor who told her “Who do you think you are… having a baby in nursing school!?” The diploma that handed a single mother the most rewarding career of nurturing (not animals, like she once thought, but people) and empowering women in their life changing moments of childbirth- where the screams and tears of pain, perfectly married those of new life and joy…(the irony didn’t escape her).
And two more blocks of life-altering significance…cotton candy pink and blue ones with cradles, not just for the career she choose, but for the two babes she birthed herself. She added a microphone to the pink one, for her feisty girl’s ability to always speak-up, to use her voice to help others and….for her love of Elvis Presley- (a unique obsession for a girl so far removed from that generation). And the blue one had a monkey with a pink heart hanging onto the side of the brown cradle, for her active little boy who learned to climb before he walked; but carried with that crazy boy energy, a love for the color pink and a tender heart that found compassion and love for the people most often rejected by the world.
Pink and blue mixed together make purple…a lavender square with a dark green leaf and a tear, for the many babies she held in her career that were still…and the many tears she wiped, when a gift became a betrayal. Around the leaf she stitched concentric circles. Like the ripples a falling leaf creates on a pond, the ripples of grief and loss were ones she knew all too well.
The thin lines that created the pond circles almost matched the perfectly spaced blue stitch that repeated horizontally across the white square. Evenly spaced circles lined-up along the left, to create a piece of paper. Like the papers she graded as an instructor and the papers she sat with for hours, helping her children do homework (ADHD sucks), like the papers she filled with her thoughts and poetry. Across the center she added a pen and covering the bottom corner, appeared to be the edge of a book. She believed that knowledge was power and writing was her therapy.
Empowered as she was and though armed with a spirit of steel and a therapeutic habit, during some seasons of her life, that therapy wasn’t enough. And she remembered the days that she walked into an office and said, “I need help…I’m not okay right now and I can’t do this alone.” Then it was someone else’s turn to minister to the ‘soldier’ who so often ministered to others.
A tangerine orange block spoke to the trauma she witnessed too many times to count and the caution it created in her steps. But overlaying the color of both bold fun and caution, she stitched a rainbow, because after every storm always came a new perspective and behind the dark shadows of tragedy, beautiful blessings are always hidden. Rainbows also mean “love is love” and she never could understand why not everyone could support that.
A light gray square served as fitting background for the beige stoop and black and white door, for the first foster child who knocked on that fateful August night. He brought to her what she knew she was being called to do. “Grief is love without a place to put it”. And fostering gave her love a place to go- cradling those in need of comfort and acceptance and a safe place to lay their heads. Coming full circle from her own childhood and experiences with grief and trauma, it opened a door in the greatest of ways. And she ensured that every child that walked through that door knew both love and fun.
A colorful Ferris wheel made of tiny scraps of fabric for another meaning-filled block…that’s fun….or not. A day at the fair gave her an illness that would forever change her perspective and overall health. Like the facial paralysis she experienced as a teen, being a medical anomaly isn’t cool when you’re living it. Whilst some days, it felt like another illusion, another betrayal…from it she learned what was really important in life and she gained an immense gratitude for the things she took for granted- eating, walking and living a day without pain.
A sunny yellow square with a green tent for the camping vacations that started out as “all we can afford” and ended with driving across the states for a lifetime of unforgettable adventure. Persistence and hard work always pays off. And the view from the summit is always worth the climb.
A cornflower blue one, to compliment that yellow…with some clouds and a plane. The plane that brought her her husband, adventures and a worldly view.
And a sand-colored bottom, with an ocean blue top for the bodies of water that bordered both her and her husband’s home lands. The only vacation she ever knew as a child, didn’t bore, but instead guided them to their most favorite place to be…at the beach. There, the hot sand soothed her joints, the waves washed away her anxiety, and the wildlife provided joyful entertainment.
Every square carefully stitched, each one sewn together to create shapes of both light and darkness, warm colors and cool ones. Every experience interwoven into the next, nothing happening by accident or without repercussion.
While she so wished some of those squares weren’t there at all…while she would have done anything to keep the colors of trauma out of her quilt…she realized the fact that they were there, wasn’t her fault. Instead, it was through her hard work and healing that those colors didn’t sabotage the rest and instead made space for new habits, new experiences, new colors. She even began to see the ways that the different colors complimented one another. A black quilt would be drab, but black next to cheerful colors make them pop. A life without pain and tragedy yields a life of ingratitude. And a life without struggle, yields a life without perspective. Painful as they were to experience, the quilt wouldn’t be complete without them.
Snipping the final loose threads, she lays down her tools, sinks back into her chair and pulls the blanket up under her chin. She’s tired now and as her head relaxes to the side, she nods off to sleep. Her dreams are flooded with every memory that together, created the final masterpiece that she has become. And although there are times in her sleep that her brow furrows and silent tears sneak past the wrinkles around her eyes, she ends with a smile on her face; because she not only survived the storms, she managed to create beauty with them.
Behind her, the rain has stopped and a rainbow crowns her…. and her masterpiece quilt.
