Telling a Story

It's difficult to explain how objects come to have meaning, but they do. Personally, I'm a de-junker. If I don't need it or use it, it finds a new home or goes in the trash. On the flip side, I'm thankful that Ruth wasn't a de-junker. Her treasures have become our memories, and finding ways to hold onto the memories contained in the objects without storing "stuff" has been one of the greatest challenges of taking care of their estate. I ask myself all the time which things will mean something to Joie someday, and try very hard to be guided by others who know which objects come to be important to children who lose parents. Going through the house we found clothes and t-shirts belonging to Ruth and Nick that went as far back as high school days. Esther (my sister) took on the challenge of turning that pile of old clothes into a treasure, and she succeeded. It was an emotional challenge, a labor of love to be sure, but we treasure the finished product. On Esther's blog (January 18, 2009), she wrote the following while beginning to work on the quilt:

Pieces of worn clothes, some worn through, some too new...too unused to be sliced into pieces. Cutting up the physical remnants of life that is dearly missed. Piecing them together, hoping to connect in some way with life passed on. Feeling His direction through her memory, and it begins to come together. More than a quilt...my own fragmented emotions that have felt so undone...beginning to come together. Refocusing, reassuring, connecting with lives removed.

Her work has become our treasure. Each piece of this quilt is a memory, and combined they tell a story of the love and life of a family.


In addition to shirt pieces, she cut off pockets and straps from pants and included them...

She didn't leave out some of Joie's old shirts...she's on here too.

The front flap of Ruth's purse. Joie found a stretched penny from the Palmyra trip tucked inside one of the pockets. We left it there.

We have pictures of them in so many of the shirts...it's easy to picture them when you look at the quilt.

It looks like I didn't get a great picture of Nick's old ties, but she cut them off and sewed them to the bottom...look closely i the picture below. (Do you feel like you're staring at a page out of an I Spy book?)

The knitted piece along the top is tied on and can be removed. It's Ruth's first knitting project. Joie said Ruth knit it for her as a scarf but she was just learning how to knit and even though it was too long she just kept going. Joie said it was too long for a scarf.

Thanks Esther for the memories. I understand she has a lot more pieces and quilts are in the works for Susan an my parents.