Healing and Dealing

This is the last quilt I ever made for my Mom. It's fairly small, about the size of a large bath towel. The blocks were left over from a quilt I made for Teach Yourself Visually Quilting. They're in pinks and purples, her favorite colors.

During the last two months of her life, this quilt was with her every day. Sometimes it just lay folded beside her pillow. Sometimes it lay across her knees, sometimes her shoulders. Sometimes she held it close to her face in her hands, like a child with a banky.

It is buried with her.

A few days before Mom died, my brother Mark and sister Heidi and I were enjoying some food together and talking. Mark happened to be leafing through an AARP newsletter and saw a notice from the National Arthritis Foundation asking for donations of small quilts (this size is most often referred to as a "lap quilt").

"Son," my brother said, "why don't you see if there's a way you can do this same thing for Parkinson's patients." Our Mom was diagnosed with Parkinsonian syndrome. Her hands shook so bad that she could barely eat, couldn't enjoy her crafts, couldn't write, had a very difficult time manipulating the oversized buttons on the remote for her TV. You get the idea.

When I got back home, I searched online to see if there was any type of organized effort to do just what my brother suggested. I didn't find anything.

Then yesterday, our local newspaper had a story about a Center for Aging connected to Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center. There, in one of the pictures, was a woman whose title is "head of the Parkinsons Center."

I emailed her—her name is Diane—and explained my idea. She wrote back immediately and very, very enthusiastically, inviting me to participate in the Parkinsons Center's first annual Christmas lunch to talk about Mom and my idea.

This feels right. This feels as though Mom guided me here. My feet have found the beginnings of a path.

I'm going to the lunch. It will be interesting to see where this takes me.