Legacy and life Review
STITCHED TOGETHER BY MEMORIES:
Mother’s quilt provides a warmth
Beyond its fiber down.
Each night I’m wrapped in love,
Our family history, and my wedding gown.
Mother cut with care her patterns
Each scrap to trim and save-
Just as she did with the numerous fabric remnants
that to her others gave.
Each patterned square reveals a story
Of our family’s growth and change.
It is far better than an album, for this memento speaks to me
Of many precious moments the camera did not see.
Part of each marriage ceremony was mother’s quilt-gift to the bride.
It makes me smile just to recall the sparkles in their eyes.
Lambs and teddy bears announced each baby’s birth,
And pink and green pajama scraps retell of Christmas mirth.
When winter days were turning cold and all the canning done
Daddy would set the frame up firm, for quilting time had begun.
I’m so glad I still can hear them today, as I am wrapped
Inside this priceless heirloom, that warms me as I nap.
There you are mom, I see you…among the colours bright,
In your kitchen dresses, gingham aprons and your gowns for night.
They all remind of you and of the things that you’ve been through.
The smiles and tears, the strife, but mostly of your teaching of the wrong and of the right.
My quilt would not have been the same without your understanding care,
My sorrow and joy are sewn in, and hemmed by time and prayer.
Our lives were joined by chance they say, I believe by choice – and this is my great pleasure,
For a quilter of love and story like you, is indeed a priceless treasure.
It matters not that my coverlet is frayed and has tiny little tears,
Years of life and warmth and time, have helped to put them there.
So I wrap myself inside your quilt and feel your love and care,
And dream of how I will impart, to those I leave behind,
the strength and courage you have shared with so many of humankind.
I have fond memories connecting my mother to the beautiful quilts she designed and crafted. Her quilts are her legacy. Her life’s story, her ability to overcome the odds, her values, her beliefs, all are intricately interwoven into the very being of her creations.
Crafts people, from the Middle-Ages, believed we infuse our soul’s energy into that which we create. I feel sure that each of mother’s children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, friends and relative also believe that mother’s soul energy is imprinted into the fabric of her quilts. We are each aware that the love she conveyed, throughout her life-time is stitched into the fibers and continues to surround and nurture anytime we have a need to cocoon.
Legacy and Life Review
A legacy can be defined as the tangible and intangible assets that are transferred to another and may be treasured as a symbol of the originator’s immortality (Ebersole & Hess, 1990). Legacies transcend time. They provide a continuation with future generations. As long as one’s story is told one remains alive in the mind of others.
We all transcend beyond ourselves. Every word we speak, and each of our creations, is an extension of who we are. We transcend ourselves and connect ourselves to future generations in art forms, crafts, autobiographies, quilts, etc. All of these provide for assurance of meaning and purpose in life and transcendence beyond death.
In preparation for our mother’s ninetieth birthday my sister requested that each of mother’s children photograph the quilts mother had, over the years, given to us, our children and grandchildren. My sister was designing a “quilt book.” Clipping and snipping she was fashioning a chapter for each of mother’s children. Our individual stories were being braided into the story of mother’s life, symbolically depicting her sharing of each of our journeys as we moved through the hills and valleys of our own experiences.
While mother did not live to view the final product, the overall goal for designing the quilt book had been well achieved. For it was the process, the very undertaking of its creation, that achieved the outcome. The process unlocked memories and stimulated the telling and retelling of stories – of narratives that needed to be shared and re-examined in order to ease past hurt, and thereby weld generational bonds.
While my mother had not been ill when the idea for the quilt book was formulated, I recognized that for about two years previous she had been actively engaged in a process of life review. I initially observed little notes inside some of her tea cups and tags attached to some of her other “treasures.” She shared that the tags named the person she desired the object to be bequeathed to. I was also very much aware that during this period mother spoke much of her relationship with her own mother. I had never before heard her speak of most of the things she discussed. And most significantly, during these conversations she “dared” to say things that had been less than positive about her childhood and her early life. My mother lived the motto: “If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.” Yet, this unaccustomed behaviour and her descriptions of events the way she saw them and the sharing of her emotions around these circumstances was an important part of her process of sorting and then of re-framing the aspects of her life that had not been the way she would have liked them to be.
Years previous, I had the opportunity to be present during the dying of a man who had spent much of his life as a trapper in the far North. He shared many stories of these experiences before I recognized that he was engaged in a process of life review. I also became aware that I was receiving privileged material and the stories he was relating would be treasured, beyond measure, by his only son who, because of distance and commitments, was able to visit only rarely.
Since the illness no longer afforded the physical strength he needed for writing, arrangements were made to have a tape recorder brought to his bedside. Each time he felt like chatting the trapper would lean over and flip the “on” switch. While I was no longer required as the necessary agent for receiving the thrilling stories of his life review, many of his memories were recorded for those whose lives would be enriched in the hearing.
What is Life Review?
A number of decades ago Eric Erickson and Robin Butler described the process of “life review.” These theorists characterize life review as a time of “sorting.” Erickson (1963) viewed the process as a time of determining if the gods are pleased with the life that has been led. Butler (1982) perceived the life review to be a time of doing a “balance sheet.” According to these theorists, in doing a life review we examine the life we have led and conclude with feelings of integrity – feeling that we have done the best we could, or we conclude with feelings of despair – feeling that our life has not turned out the way we would have liked it to. And there in lies a great opportunity for those of us who walk beside another in their time of processing the events and circumstances of their life.
Stimulating the Process