Crazy Quilt Patches
I just returned home from a whirlwind weekend trip to visit family and old school friends in another state. At times I laughed. At times I cried. It was an emotionally packed, physically demanding crazy quilt of emotions time for me.
Many of my family members have been emotionally separated from me for many years. To be blunt, they could have cared less if I lived or died. Needless to say, going back "home" has not been a top priority for me.
Dysfunctional families are not fun. Severely dysfunctional families covering a multitude of generations are even less fun.
Fortunately (or unfortunately) much of the family dysfunction, anger and resentment has recently been resolved with my sister's schizophrenia diagnosis and, close family members I haven't spoken to in many years broke bread with me this past weekend.
As I think back over this weekend, so many things swirl through my soul and heart as I realize that every person in our lives for a time are a patch sewn into each of our crazy quilt lives.
Because of or in spite of, each meeting of each person in our lives changes our quilt forever. Sometimes the meeting is loving and nurturing, sometimes it's not. But a patch is still sewn into our crazy quilt lives regardless of the emotional outcome of each relationship.
My own crazy quilt life bears patches of generations gone by, from people I have never met--those who have gone on before me. Those patches are old and frayed and threadbare and worn. But they are still part of my quilt because how these people made their way through this world influenced the way their children did too. And eventually their choices touched my life and changed how my crazy quilt life would be sewn.
My own crazy quilt life also has patches that are missing because of those dear ones I have lost in my lifetime. The holes in my quilt bear witness to their being and they are not forgotten, nor are their influence. The love is still there in the holes.
Life changes. Love dies. Lives end. But, if we are determined enough to remember and cherish and understand and forgive each person represented on each patch of our crazy quilt lives we will forever have something to keep us warm.
Jackie Deems
copyright 2019
