It’s hard to believe that, in less than a month, we’ll cross the year-mark since my mom died. The passage of time has been bizarre as the first nine months seemed to crawl and then, once the holidays and my mom’s birthdate passed, everything seemed to speed up.
It’s been twelve months filled with every feeling imaginable, many triggered by the endless mini-goodbyes that follow a big one. So many goodbyes! Cleaning out Mom’s dresser was filled with those mini-goodbyes as I had to decide which items should be kept, which should be donated, and which should be tossed. The basket that sat next to her favorite chair was filled with more mini-goodbyes as I cleaned out a pile of pens, dozens of sewing needles, a few notebooks, four or five sets of nail clippers, lotion after lotion after lotion, a handful of half-used chapsticks, and more.
While working my way though each of these tasks, I had to fight the urge to keep every single item I found because, well, anything else felt like I was giving pieces of my mom away.
A few weeks ago, my dad, husband, and I made the trek ninety minutes north from my parents’ home for another one of those goodbyes. There was no fooling ourselves into believing that this mission, assigned to me by Mom in the months before she died, would be “mini” at all, for we would be giving one of Mom’s stunning, handmade quilts to one of her most favorite places on the planet, the Angus Barn.
I don’t remember a time when Mom wasn’t sewing something, by hand, when camped out in front of the television. She may have been shortening pants, patching a hole, or, most often, working on small, colorful squares that would eventually be stitched together into a beautiful quilt. The fruits of her labor are all over my parents’ house and mine. Each of Mom’s quilts typically took a year (or more) to complete, and the results were always breathtaking.
When my mom was in her quilting heyday, a stop at the local quilt store was the norm, no matter what town we happened to be passing through. I would spend hours with her, against my will, looking at patterns and fabrics and batting and more. I can’t tell you how boring that was. Like seriously, Snoozeville. Just hearing the words “I want to stop by the quilt store for real quick” exhausted me instantly, as I knew that it would not be “real quick” at all. I mean, really, how could finding a spool of thread (her usual cover story) take two hours?
No, this is not a story about how I am sitting here longing for just one more chance to go to the quilt store with Mom, though I am sitting here under the very quilt she made for my family when we purchased our first house.
While I was visiting her in the months before she died and while we were watching the 17th hour of the Today show, my mom blurted out, “Give Van a quilt,” quite randomly. I nodded along, though I didn’t really take the declaration seriously as, by then, strange demands were the dementia norm. Still, on another visit and then another, my mom repeated those instructions, adding a firm, “Don’t forget,” to the end.
Van is the owner of the Angus Barn, our favorite family restaurant, and where so many of our stories have taken place. The restaurant is adorned with quilts, so it actually made sense that Mom would insist that one of hers go to live there. It’s just that, after she died, I pushed that task off, over and over, because I could not imagine how I would even pick a quilt to give away, let alone actually follow through.
Still, my mom’s words bounced around in my head every time I made the trip north or south from my home to my parents’ as I passed by the exit for the Angus Barn each way. Should I have asked her which quilt to give to the Angus Barn? Would that have made this easier?
As we were planning a visit with my dad the week after Christmas, the idea of a dinner at the Angus Barn started floating around. My dad hadn’t been to see his second home in years, as going without my mom was too painful to imagine. As we rounded the corner to our first new year without Mom, Dad decided that, yes, he was ready to dip his toe back into the old norm. We were prepared for a bit of an emotional night, and that’s exactly what we got, but in all the best ways.
While still at home and before we drove south, Rich and I had laid out five quilts, all handmade by my mom, so that we could choose the one that we would be rehomed. It wasn’t easy. Most of the quilts had been folded up and tucked into the linen closet, used only for guests or on extremely cold nights (they are heavy!). Some, I had even forgotten, were part of our home. Even though I had no real emotional attachment to three of the five, I was absolutely stuck when it came to selecting one to give away.
This is where my husband shines: Getting me unstuck when my brain becomes so overwhelmed that it locks up.
Once the quilt was selected, I decided to add a small “Love, Judy” to one of its corners. This sounds simple, yes, but I am not my mother and, therefore, do not hold a needle and thread nearly as gracefully as she did. I tried to talk myself into the easy way out, using some iron-on letters, but I kept going back to hand-embroidery. How hard could it be, right?
It really wasn’t that hard, except for the tears that kept filling my eyes as I pushed the needle through the quilt’s sturdy fabric to form the words. Had I been with her when she picked this pattern? This fabric? This particular color of thread? With each stitch, all I could think about was how I was now sewing, by hand, on the very same fabric that my mom had sewn, by hand, years ago. The feeling of connection was overwhelming.
It was as if she were sitting right there with me, guiding each stitch I made, shaking her head with a giggle and a touch of disbelief at how out of my element I was.
I could almost hear her saying, “It’s okay, pobody’s nerfect,” a line that she had sprinkled across my life each time I had panicked over my lack of perfection.
The quilt is now safely tucked into its new home at the Angus Barn, awaiting what I imagine will be a beautiful display.
I cannot wait to return, knowing that I will forever be able to spot a piece of my mom in a place that carries so many memories for our family. The night we delivered it, we ate dinner at a four-top, my dad, Rich, and I, with the oversized quilt taking up chair number four. Yes, I did bring the tiny urn with me. There were tears on both ends of the meal–first from my Dad as he told us that he felt like he was home again, and second, from me as I watched that quilt being carried off for safekeeping.
It was another goodbye, but one skirting the edge of happiness.
