Quarantine 2020 and other thoughts of love…

While many of my fellow artists spent their weeks and months of quarantine expressing their feelings through art, I found myself completing a task I had habitually rotated to the back of my To Do List for several years: making quilts for each of my children from their deceased father’s shirts. I was an experienced quilter, so the mechanics were relatively easy. But THIS would be more than just quilting. This would need to be a true labor of love! I will admit, the wave of emotions that struck from time to time made this whole process a little more challenging.

It I were to be brutally truthful, I would admit that I tried to get out of making them once. About four years after Ed’s death, as I was cleaning out the house on Walker after it was sold, I asked my children if this was something they still wanted me to do. My wordsmith son immediately offered his opinion: “I cannot think of anything more precious than a quilt made of my father’s shirts by my mother’s hand.” Well THAT pretty much sealed the deal! The girls immediately agreed. Yet it took three more years and Covid 19 for me to finally face the task.

One of the first challenges was to find three patterns that could be made with the shirts I had saved. After all, even though there were infinite memories cloaked among those shirts, there was still only a finite amount of material I could harvest. In fact, some of his most favorite shirts that really needed to be included were nearly thread bare! Sorting, cutting, stitching…

..finally into quilts.

As each one of the quilts were unwrapped at Christmas, the waves of individual memories and emotions washed across their faces, leaving each slightly teary eyed and momentarily speechless as they immediately recognized what they were holding. Every challenge I thought I faced in making each quilt was also instantly washed away, making me thankful I had finally followed through on my promise.

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And, true to Charles’ words…

I’m sure each of these quilts will cover our children with love as they snuggle beneath them for a Sunday afternoon nap. I’m equally sure that more than a smile or two will come to their faces as they remember their daddy wearing some of those shirts! Memories are powerful…and so are the secrets sewn into each quilt!

Thank you, Covid, for helping me get my priorities straight! Thank you forcing me into a block of time, replete with a perspective of one’s mortality, that motivated me to complete these expressions of love so long overdue.

So, dear readers, these are just some of my personal musings I wanted to share…. Thanks for the indulgence!

Carla