This Mother's Day was chaos - as usual. Both daughters called to say that cards would be late - their lives seem to be as chaotic as mine - must be genetic. Both reminded me how impossible I am to shop for since my true love is needlepoint and I already own a store full of needlepoint.
We were at my granddaughter's college graduation but had to make a hasty run home from Charleston to get my husband on a plane for an emergency trip to Albuquerque. Out there our 2 month old granddaughter was in ICU on a respirator. Terry was needed to watch over the 4-year old. It took most of the day to make sure he had enough of all 13 (yes - 13) prescriptions to last for 3 weeks. Got him to the airport and ran to take Mom out to dinner.
I got home that evening fairly exhausted - waiting to take shoes off and relax when I noticed my formerly-known-as-feral outdoor cat doing everything at the back door except back flips. As I opened the door, I was presented with my first actual gift of the day - a huge dead rat. I am not sure what I did to deserve such a wonderful treat, but I thanked her profusely and had to sneak out at 2 a.m. to throw the thing into the woods.
In light of Mother's Day, I wanted to share with you part of a blog written by a wonderful young college student named Gatesy Hill. I have a link at the bottom so you could go to read her entire blog. It is well worth reading in its entirety. How refreshing it is to have young stitchers finding as much pleasure in needlepoint as we always have! I will start in the middle of what she wrote:
"This new hobby definitely puts me even more in the "mom" status box I was placed in throughout the years with friends dating back to High School, but I didn't care, and I still don't.
Now, being me,I,of course, am going to go deeper. It is really amazing how well you get to know each canvas. It sounds bizarre, I know. But there is nothing like the feel of a canvas that has been completed....
But, I always think about the little journey that particular canvas saw me through. A day in bed with one of those bad colds I am notorious for getting. A rough period where I am experiencing a large change, like my parents brief move into a smaller house this summer, my grandmother's death, and then our move back IN to my childhood home. Or even just some quiet time with me, my stitches, and my thoughts (Quiet time is really a lost art; but that's a different post for a different day). Nonetheless, I have come to love this practice in my life. It's funny how you can express yourself, even amongst a form....The freedom to make a piece your own, but honoring the original form the canvas came in. A new canvas, even with the image painted on, still lends itself to endless possibilities: i.e. the freedom within the form."
http://geggersinc.blogspot.com/2014/03/stitching-it-all-together.html
On a both heavier and yet lighter note, I was called by a husband of one of my favorite stitchers - a sprite of a 91-year-old named Lib Dills. Wayne said to come quick - Lib was in Hospice and he knew she would like to see me. She was slipping in and out of consciousness. When I got there and leaned down to kiss her, she opened her eyes and gave me the biggest smile and a hug, and then slipped out of consciousness. Her niece and her nephew were both there and were most undone. I was told that they had been there all day and Lib had never recognized either of them. Why me - they wanted to know. I explained it the only way I knew how. I gave them an analogy that sadly probably fits best. If Lib were a drug addict, I would best be described as her dealer. Needlepoint is - after all - an addiction, isn't it???
