In March of 2006, I was diagnosed with stage four ovarian cancer. After getting over the shock, I began a year long series of chemotherapy. My family, neighbors, and friends were the cornerstone of getting back and forth to chemotherapy which started at 8am and finished around 4:00pm. One of the women who volunteered to take me was Nancy Wright and I had never met her. She had recently moved from Missouri to Georgia and her son had been diagnosed with cancer and his friends had rallied around him and she was so grateful that she just wanted to help someone else, a pay it forward kind of act. During our ride and through the day, we discussed many things as we are both retired teachers. She mentioned how she wanted to put her mother's clothes in a quilt. I told her that I would be more than happy to help whenever she was ready.
A year later, she called and said she was ready to make the quilt and would I help her. She brought several bags of clothes and my initial reaction was one of quiet surprise. Many of her mother's clothes were made of polyester and some were fragile and well worn. Of course, the colors appeared to have no harmony. I knew how important this memory quilt was so we set about piling the clothes into color groups and to our surprise, we found some colorful relationships. Next, we chose a simple 9 patch since she had never done any quilting. We worked many days happily cutting and teaching her how to chain and make half square triangles etc.
When she was telling her adult son about the quilt he told her that she needed to make a quilt for each of her siblings. That was quite a challenge as she has 7 siblings. In the end, after many many hours of sewing blocks (63 per quilt) Nancy very successfully and with such patience, completed all 8 tops. Nancy used an old Singer machine that I lent her. She learned how to use a rotary cutting tool, how to make binding, etc and many days she stretched her comfort level. She varied the pattern on all eight quilt tops. With determination and resolve she completed all eight tops just before Christmas and each top made it to her siblings. The tops are all beautiful and a wonderful memory of their beloved mother.
Since, my diagnosis, I have been so amazed at the kindness and generosity of people willing to give of themselves to help others, like Nancy did for me. I met and have a new friend, got through the first year of chemotherapy because of the many people who were there for me. Quilting has been my therapy and many days it helped me through the cancer treatments. The challenge of making a quilt let me escape the worry and the cancer.
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