Drove up to Peachtree City this morning under a rainy overcast sky. The sky was rolled up in oatmeal colored clouds, their bellies highlighted dark grey and full of silver rain showers. Only saw three birds, random glossy black crows, eating carrion on the road side. I love having my grandchildren close enough now that I can drive up for a short visit and enjoy their school activities.

Rerunning one of my favorite columns from March 2023 so I can enjoy all my grandmothering this evening —

Sat on the porch swing this morning for a short time in my down vest, wrapped up in a beautiful worn and tattered quilt, watching the goldfinches frolicking around the feeders. The males are so handsome dressed in their bright yellow sport coats, greedily cleaning out their favorite feeders every day they visit. Those little things can eat! The bamboo forest was performing a Hawaiian hula dance, back and forth in time with the tintinabulations of the banging wind chimes. I was watching the bamboo and started humming the hula dance song. If you could see them you’d understand. The bamboo are such fun to watch when they dance and sway with the wind.

As I sat in the swing my hand was resting on my favorite quilt, a gift from Kathryn Awbrey when I was in high school. Some how when I was talking to her at school one day the subject of quilts came up and I proceeded to tell her we’d didn’t have any homemade quilts in our family and how I had always wanted a quilt to put across the foot of my bed. The next day she called me over to her home and gave me a beautiful handmade quilt. I was thrilled with the gift and have cherished it.

This quilt has been such a comfort to me for almost 50 years. I carried it off to college and put it on the foot of my bed. It covered me up when I was sick and kept me warm in the winter. Helped heal my hurts when I was homesick for my family. I would take it to the beach and to the lake and use it as a beach towel to sunbathe on. When I got married I used it for a curtain in the bathroom of our first home. When our children came along they all learned to sit up and crawl on that quilt. I’ve even used it as a table cloth on birthday occasions. It’s old and used and worn and has been in the washer and dryer several times but I love it and all the memories I associate with it.

As I sat on the swing looking down at the quilt, running my hand across it, I started to ponder on how our lives can take the shape of a well loved quilt. I think God designs our quilt and we design the quilt top as we live our lives. Our quilt top can represent the strong bonds of love and family that are woven together throughout our lifetime. The colorful cloth squares for our quilt are our memories and dreams and personal experiences, each part of our life captured on a quilt square.

When we’re born our quilt square is pure white with the innocence of our childhood. As we grow and develop, a joyful gathering of yellow and orange and pink and blue and red squares are added to the quilt. As we leave our childhood and progress through the teenage years we add the dark blues and purple squares of teenage angst to mark our passage to adulthood. In adulthood we add some green squares for life and vitality and pink and light blue squares for the birth of our children. As our quilt top design continues, we add some grays and inky black squares for the turmoil and sadness that happens as we age. For the twilight of our old age, we add whimsical patterned squares in cheerful happy colors.

We stuff our quilt with all the soft cotton memories and love we have for family and friends. The quilted backing is our Christian faith, giving us strength when life has its heartbreaking moments. The binding around our quilt is our resiliency and strength to face life as it ebbs and flows. Sewing the squares and quilting would be the threads of love from all the mothers in our family, generations of women pulling their life’s threads through the quilt top and backing. Our life quilt tells a story of a generation of love and faith.

I hope all my friends and family are warm in their beds under a beautiful handmade quilt on this cold spring night.

“Our lives are like quilts — bits and pieces, joy and sorrow, stitched with love.”—Unknown.