My Grandmother’s Quilt

The following is a blog I wrote several years ago, about ties with my grandmother through the quilt she made me, and which I use every summer. I’d just switched from winter to summer bedding. That brought me my annual opportunity to feel her presence, and experience the closeness I had with her.

Here it is …

I’ve spent the last month of evenings re-sewing the quilt my grandmother gave me when I was in my 20’s. She’d given a quilt she’d made herself to each of her granddaughters that year. It was a patchwork of all the scraps she’d saved, many reminding me of the garments she’d made for us.

I treasure that quilt. I’ve mended it three times since. As I sat mending it this time, I felt a connection to my grandmother I hadn’t noticed the first time I’d mended it. I saw the stitches she made and felt a physical link to her through those stitches.

Feeling her physical presence in the threads of her quilt reminded me that the link I have with her never really leaves, that I have access to her whenever I need it. That I’m blessed with her presence along with that of all the people I was close to at some time in my life.

Mending my quilt was like mending that link. So nourishing.

Quote of the Week

We're all ghosts. We all carry, inside us, people who came before us.

― Liam Callanan, The Cloud Atlas

Our grandmother’s dress

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Maryanne Nicholls is a Registered Psychotherapist.  To find out more, gain access to her weekly newsletter, meditations and programs, sign up at www.thejoyofliving.co .