i've been busy and i haven't taken the time to do my own quilt. i've sort of finished the top but not to my liking. i rushed it so i will have to take it all apart and that depresses me so much. it's a major setback. i don't have the fabric i want for it and i used remnants just to get something together, anything together for me. i see the others with their quilts i made and i want mine. i just want my own quilt. so i used push pins and put it up on the wall to look at. before i start taking it apart, i need to plan better and get the fabric i want for it.
in the meantime......
my Dragon carried cotton handkerchiefs. he wasn't against tissues but he just carried a cotton handkerchief in his pocket "in case." i have all of them. so until i have some time without a deadline in it that i can take my quilt apart and redo it, i'm using my down time late at night when my hand hurts too much to do the sewing on a commissioned quilt to embroidery his handkerchiefs. i'm drawing dragons on them and using my best floss. not that i use crappy floss on the commissioned work, i don't. but people have special colors they've selected that have great meaning to them. i'm using the colors that have great meaning to me.
these little handkerchief dragons are my creative homage to a man who was amazed by my sewing. he always loved my designs and i was felt special when he looked at my work. i always wanted him to think i was important. coming from a life where i had no value at all, my self-worth barely registered. i had grown to believe i was nothing. then he found me and saw something inside me that he like. he thought i should be allowed to feel cherished. he always said he wanted me to fly free and he'd be along for the ride. he always believed i had hidden talent. but i am sitting here tonight after a long silent weekend alone wondering if i have now lost my self-worth because i've lost him.
we only see objects when light shines on them. he shined his brilliant smile on me and i was noticed for the first time as a sentient person with her own dreams and feelings. i have always been womanNshadows, a name i acquired along the way well over 38 years ago. it is not an Internet screen name. it is a family name. my name. my life has over and over borne out the truth of that name. receiving it was a crushing blow. it became one of my scars. my Dragon taught me to value it and the strength it took to endure it. he is the most wonderful man i've ever known. he is the smartest, strongest, kindest, most irreverent man i've ever known. i adore him. i'm his wife. i'm his widow, but i still feel intensely more his wife. we're just not able to be in the same, what, plane of consciousness together? the same timeline?
do i believe in signs? i want to. i've only had two. the night after he died a radio that never played before popped on at exactly 12:03 AM, the time on his death certificate, playing Sarah MacLaughlin's "Angel." "in the arms of the angels far away from here....." not the beginning of the song. not the end. right there. those words came from a radio that should not have been plugged in. was it a sign? i hope so. does it go against faith and would it make God mad if i think that? i don't know. and the heart cloud as we crossed the border into this state where i'm living now. is that a sign? the reality is i've only directly asked my daughter and she'll say anything to help me get through the moment.
i've read other grief blogs. i've read that time makes it easier. i've read that we just adapt to the new life without, that the burden is still there, but we learn to carry it. i've read some who have moved on and others who, after a few years, still grieve and are still trying to find their way. grief is like carpet bombing. there is such wide spread devastation from so many different ways death occurred, and so many different attempts to get through it, live with it, get past it. we're all searching and everyone has responses and their ways but no one has the answer. i've read comments be snippy, condescending, and outright hostile to those who blog about their grief. it's even intimidating to write when so many others do. you post and check back to see if anyone noticed you. who left a comment. what did they say. is there comfort there? ridicule? an answer you haven't thought of?
in the end, all we can do is log off and go back to our grief-stricken lives; live however works best for us. for me, i'm juggling trying to make some time for myself. i am slowly getting some designs done for me that will bring me solace.
like Dragons in my embroidery hoop and the quilt on the wall. the art of grief.
