The quilt of my life

Last night Justin and I were watching the Dallas Cowboys, but when it was certain they would win we decided to do something different… we watched home movies. That is right!!! I let him see me not only as an adorable kid, but also as the awkward middle school cheerleader. It was so much fun and we laughed so hard. Since it was a little chilly last night I got the quilt off my spare bed. After the home movies were over, I asked him if he had seen my quilt. He hadn’t so I started telling him the story.

It is a t-shirt quilt, one that my mom and I started making a few months before she died. Mom had decided that we should take all my t-shirts from high school and turn them into a quilt. I thought it was a wonderful idea so the work began. We laid out each shirt and looked at the way the rows would be formed. Great care was taken into measuring and cutting the shirts for we couldn’t make a mistake! After all the shirts were cut, mom started sewing them into rows, she got through two… and then she left, she died. The quilt was left unfinished, incomplete.

When dad was going through the house after mom died, he came across the pile of t-shirts. He decided to have the quilt finished for me as my Christmas present that year. I remember opening the quilt that Christmas and crying. It was amazing. It was like me having part of my mother back. I treasure the quilt. I use it at times and am always terrified when I wash it.

After I finished telling the story, Justin looked into my eyes with the saddest expression. He then asked how my mom could leave before the quilt was finished. I looked at him and stated that the quilt was not the only thing left unfinished. My mom being part of my life was far from being finished, but she left, she made that choice. Just as there were many pieces of the quilt left, so were many aspects of my life. I stated that just as my quilt was put together by someone else, so has my life. In some way, the pieces of my life have been sewn together even without my mom present. Just as her imprint was left on the quilt, so is her imprint on my life.

It doesn’t make sense at times, but all I know is that my life continues to be a quilt added to and made into something beautiful. Although one of the two who started the quilt of my life left, it in no way means the quilting stopped. In her absence others have picked up a needle and thread. They have sewn in times when mom was not there, but I needed her. At times I doubted if the quilt of my life could be put together with her gone, but at each of those moments someone has stepped into my life. As I look at the continual progression of my quilt, I could not be happier. I also think my mom would be happy at the progression of the quilt of my life.