This word was challenging, as Maegan said it would be. I let it percolate in the back of my mind all day at work. I thought of one direction I’d go, but I wasn’t satisfied with it. Then, sitting here with my fingers poised over my keyboard, it hit me.

In 1988, my baby, my son, was failing to thrive. We’d moved from Texas to Connecticut. I didn’t know anyone. I was still hemorrhaging from his birth, the previous May. I had a 5-year old daughter, a 2-year old daughter, and an infant. I didn’t know it, but he was simply allergic to the corn syrup in his formula – but his pediatrician told me a devastating story of a failed life for my most precious little boy.

So, in the deep dark middle of the nights, I sat in my chair and pieced a quilt. Each little diamond, each stitch, soaked in my tears, dyed with my heartsick worry. I stitched and stitched, night after night.

Months passed, I figured out the corn syrup connection and changed his formula. We moved to Virginia, to Fredericksburg. He caught up, he ran and laughed. He lay under my quilting hoop and laughed when the quilting needle poked through the quilt. He laughed, my son laughed, and so did I.

my tear- and laughter-soaked quilt

It’s the first quilt I ever made, and I have layers of thoughts and feelings when I look at it – pride, and memories of the dark and the terror, joyful memories of his laughter. It’s impossible to feel just one thing when I look at it. The making of it is layered and complex. And now it lives in my oldest daughter’s home, in the first home she bought with her husband.

Meagan provided this perfect poem – so perfect I include it here, so it’s forever linked with my story.

The Journey, by Mary Oliver

One day you finally knew
What you had to do, and began,
Though the voices around you
Kept shouting
Their bad advice—
Though the whole house
Began to tremble
And you felt the old tug
At your ankles.
“Mend my life!”
Each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do
Though the wind pried
With its stiff fingers
At the very foundations
Though their melancholy
Was terrible.
It was already late
Enough, and a wild night,
And the road full of fallen
Branches and stones.
But little by little
As you left their voices behind,
The stars began to burn
Through the sheets of clouds,
And there was a new voice
Which you slowly recognized as you own,
That kept you company
As you strode deeper and deeper
Into the world,
Determined to do
The only thing you could do—
Determined to save
The only life that you could save.