Passages

I conjured up the man from Key West last night.  The man whose blog I read who walks the streets of the island city with his portly old lab.  In my dream he stood beside the fence gazing up at our house, the moonlight reflecting off his pink crocs.  His dog was nowhere to be seen as he shivered in the cold and damp beside the creek.  What made me wake at 4:00 this morning thinking of him?

Possibly because our own two dogs had crept up into the bed sometime during the night and were threatening to catapult me onto the floor.  Or maybe I was still mulling over his last post about the passage of time.

This time passage in our family has been a hard one for me this year.  With the split up of my daughter and son-in-law last year right after Christmas, I have spent a good part of the last few months mourning the fact that the upcoming holidays would not be the same without the son-in-law that we love so much.  I had no idea that last Christmas was the last one we would spend with my Dad also.  Although not totally unexpected due to so many health issues, his passing two weeks ago left a huge gap in our lives. My sweet handsome grandsons accepted the role of pall-bearers, a hard role for any young man to have to do.  But they did it with love and honor. 

With the passing of this year and all the emotional stress that was involved, my garden suffered from lack of attention.  During spring and early summer I diligently took care of my blooms but as summer wore on and the dry heat and my own exhaustion took over I was just too worn out to baby things along like I should have.  

But my garden is forgiving and even now it is rewarding me with glorious color for a few more days.  I hardly noticed the changing color during the first week of October until the day of the funeral when I realized that my world was alive in wonderful shades of russet, gold and orange. 

Since the leaves are falling quickly and winter is just around the corner, I am busily back at quilting.  I enjoyed a wonderful quilt retreat with my quilting buddies last week and was able to get the binding sewn on the quilt that our son-in-law asked me to make for him.  Quilting this one has been bittersweet because I feel like it is the one last gift I can give to him.  But it did turn out rather well.  Oscar certainly approves of it as he poses here for a photo opportunity. 

I pulled out my Robbing Peter to Pay Paul quilt which has been on hold for several months.  I am quilting the last border on this one so it is soon to be finished also.  

And how amazed I was to win the quilt top at our quilt retreat.  We had all made a block for this one.  So my December project will be to add borders and get this one quilted during our long winter months ahead.

Time passes into the future and loved ones come and go out of our lives.  As I type this my bedroom has taken on a golden glow from the sun shining through the maple leaves in the tree outside my window, filling me with warmth and hope.   Though my mother, sisters and I are mourning a wonderful man, I look forward to enjoying the promise of another garden and the feel of another quilt beneath my hands.