Seven days after my birth I was placed in a quilt my grandmother had made and brought immediately to her home. My mother suddenly had no idea who anyone was including her brand new daughter. Doctors hospitalized her, blamed it on postpartum depression and said it would be over in a few weeks. Each night for almost two years my father made the 45 mile journey into Montreal, Quebec only to have my mother insist she had no clue who he was. While he was sitting in the cab of a neighbours semi trailer on the way home, I was being tucked into my crib with the same quilt I came home from the hospital in.
One night my father gathered me up in that same quilt and smuggled me into the Royal Victoria Hospital hoping my mother might remember me. I can still see her looking down at the cards she was playing solitaire with while I was holding on to the edge of that dear quilt in fear. To this day I will never forget that image - my father says I was barely two but I still remember the grayness of the room. While my life was sterile and cold, the quilt held warmth and security. My grandmother always said that blankets wrap you in warmth but quilts wrap you in love.
At age 12 my mother died and my grandmother sat with me on her veranda and wrapped that same quilt around me while I cried. Life was never the same after that and the quilt was placed on my bed like an old friend when I stayed with her. I would stare at the painting on the wall while I tried to sleep and thought that a lot of people understood art but not quilts. If I had a lot of money I would own a quilt and not a piece of art because in the end which gives you the most comfort?
When I got married at age 21 my Grandmother sat at the dining room table for weeks and worked on a quilt for my new home. The pale yellow and pink floral quilt kept me safe from an abuser who thought nothing more of me than a financial way of going to University. I then understood I could trust that quilt with my life and not my husband.
As I traveled down the road of life that quilt was always there while people came and went. Although it was aging gracefully it was still heavy and secure anytime I needed it. Through death and sickness it held comfort and the promise that it would never desert me. This quilt held my life with all the bits and pieces, joys and sorrows that had been stitched into it with love.
At age 47 the quilt died peacefully in my arms. A terrible house fire had destroyed it and as I looked at the charred edges I realized the thread that held it together had bound the both of us forever. Now it was time to go down the final road by myself and remembering the words of Herman Hesse I began the journey.
“Some of us think holding on makes us strong; but sometimes it is letting go.”
Images and text by: Linda Seccaspina 2011- Quilts on the Tay Exhibit in Perth Ontario 2011
Info-Lanark Quilters Guild