What Am I Learning

This week I have been learning that emotions are not always easy to deal with, not always easy to understand, and not always easy to explain. Emotions have been high in the family this week. I worked on a quilt for my daughter which ended up not being such a good idea. See we lost "Nana", whom she was very close to back in 2005. Nana was just one of those Proverb 31 women we all aspire to be. One of a kind. Truly just a beacon of light. She never crossed someones path without impacting their day, even the check out person at Walmart was impacted. Always smiled, told you - you were loved by God. We took care of her from the time my daughter was 3 I guess until she was in 1st grade- around Christmas Time. So to Mekenzei Nana was really the world. We also had a dog for that same time period that was given to us by my birth father and his wife. Surprisingly (not really to my husband and I), Nana and the dog passed within months of each other.

Well this quilt that I was making with love sparked emotion in my daughter that I did not expect. See when she was little I had saved this box of clothing of Nana's to make several quilts with. Unfortunately things don't always go as planned so when my husbands family was going through things they just junked it all. My daughter still wants her quilt. LOL

I have had three grandfathers pass since then, one very recent and I was able to get some clothes from two of them. One I have some shirts from, the other a couple pairs of pants. My one grandmother even gave me two items that were hers, so that she won't have to worry later. I thought that was a great idea. For me it was a great way to deal with the death and I am learning that my little 10 year old is the same way.

She wants something tangible. Too often we forget when we are going through old things when someone passes on that our children might want something to. We tend to think of ourselves as adults first. I know that is what happened in our family. There were too many grandchildren on my husbands side and they just were not thought of, it was seen as a hassle.

I am praying for a solution, I am praying that I find a way to comfort my daughter through her very real emotions. Death is never easy, and even though we can preach that we will see them again, that they are in a better place, and that our children understand that, sometimes the physical part of our heart still feels a little sad.

I did have an idea late last week to do a memory quilt- using colors for heart disease, Alzheimer's, Ovarian and Cervical Cancer etc... Those all run in my family. I have had my husband mom and two grandfathers pass from Alzheimer's, my husbands mom also had a small touch of heart disease at the end, my two grandfathers were plagued with it for a lot of their adult lives. My grandmother has battled several cancers. I thought of all the quilts donated in peoples names for Initiatives and that we could make one in memory of all of them, living and past. So maybe God already knew this would arise and this is the solution. It would be very easy to involve the kids in the making of the quilt, maybe by cutting fabric- choosing some in the right colors etc.

Healing is hard that is the lesson I have really learned this week. It takes work- it doesn't just happen and everyone deals with things differently. While I can speak many bible verses to her, somehow right now that is not enough, so my answer is Prayer and possibly this quilt.

So what have you been learning this week?