slowly she turned

And so, I grieved and got on with the job of renovating the house. Now, because of Mama’s life insurance, I would have enough money to do the needed repairs and a few extras without going further into debt. Thanks, Mom!

I was so glad that I had already designed a tapestry and was ready to weave before all this happened. The tapestry and the anticipation of my trips to Oregon, Colorado, and California sustained me.

We made a second bathroom out of an odd existing space in the house and are still working on renovating the original one that had (HAD, that wonderful past tense!) a serious foundation problem.

I spent a lot of time at Lake Waccamaw with my sister and brother-in-law. They rented a house for six months and it was close to Mama’s – now our – house.

But the thing that brought me the most joy was the Cannon Beach tapestry retreat, where Pam Patrie took me under her loving wing and welcomed me to the Divines.

Okay, this is where the words fail me. I cannot gush enough over the gratitude I feel toward Pam. She is a fairy godmother to me, in all honesty. She is on that level. How can I describe the magic? How can I describe the bliss of joining a group of companions on my same path, who get me and share my passion? How can I describe the stunning beauty of the landscape, the breeze blowing through the cliffside trees, the sound of the waves below?

I knew I would be back as often as my finances and job would allow, until I could make the transition to living there.

In September, I visited my family in Colorado, then went on to the Art-is-You retreat in Petaluma, California. Both incredible trips in their own rights, but quite frankly blogging this on my Kindle is just about used up all my patience so I’ll attempt to finish this with a photo from each and one of the latest photos of the “98% Water” tapestry, which I intend to finish before midnight tonight.

The Overlap

It is very hard for me to write about this part because of the strange joy I feel about it.

Just before Mama’s passing, I joined the American Tapestry Alliance, created a design and cartoon for my next tapestry, and talked to Pam about her tapestry retreats. At first I was inquiring about her ad in the ATA newsletter because I felt sure that there had to be a typo – how could this incredible opportunity be affordable? Weaving tapestry with other tapestry weavers in an Oregon cabin on a Pacific sea cliff?

I hardly had a chance to talk to Mama about it, but I mentioned how passionate I felt about going to live on the West Coast because I feel that I belong there. “What’s keeping you from going? Me?” she asked.

“Well, yeah,” I answered, in a tone that implied obviousness. Then I felt the awkwardness of the answer and made a joke, as I often did, about her outliving me. Seriously, I always thought that she might well live into her 100s. She had the toughness and the genes for it. I added that of course, also I am married and I have a job that I love, but yes, I would not want to leave her.

A few days later that conversation would haunt me for weeks when I heard from all sides that the widely held opinion that my mother had chosen her time to die. That she didn’t want to be a burden. That she had discussed many things with my sister concerning her final wishes that very week of our conversation, during what we now know was her last week with us.

I don’t think that my mother chose to die but I do think that she was willing to let go of her life once it became time. I hope that I will feel the same.

Now my life would turn toward looking at my future without her. Becoming an adult at age 53. Feeling no need to get her approval concerning my choices, which was always a problem between us. We are all very critical personalities in my family. I loved her, but her passing brought me a certain freedom that I can’t deny if I am to be honest about it. I was always caught in the stress of trying to please her and trying to please my soul. It was an impossible situation. I don’t have to justify my life to anyone but my Self now. Wow.

I still grieve, but life will always be different now. I feel that if my mother’s spirit is still watching, she would be pleased with me, mistakes and all. She finally understands.

I began 2014 in an upward spiral of creativity. With my tendinitis and back pain much improved, my mind turned again to tapestry. I was having a great time weaving and sewing these fabric pieces, inspired and mentored from afar by Jude Hill. I am still sewing these because they are fun and portable. However, I have not yet decided what to do with them. For now, they are enough just being what they are.

In February I enjoyed this hike to Ridges Mountain Nature Preserve near Asheboro, and the kittens, of course.

In March, I enjoyed a two-day felting/bookmaking workshop with
Chad Alice Hagan, an artist who I’ve wanted to play with for a long time, right here around the corner from my house, thanks to Victoria Clegg and Rosser Tilley.

Elizabeth Lanier starts a group that will transform into the Central Carolina Fiber Guild.

I also nearly finish the Affinity scroll, which India Flint includes in her book about her students.

Gardening becomes my focus in April. But just a week after Mama wins the People’s Choice award in an art show in Lumberton, she gets mysteriously and gravely ill.

We cancel our vacation to Cahokia and go to Lake Waccamaw instead, and bring Mama back to Marietta from the rehab facility and Lisa’s house. She seems to be recovering well and begins living independently again. I realize that we need to get moving on adding the second bathroom in case she needs to come stay with us some, so I start gathering estimates.

Mama gets sick again and returns to the hospital. This time it seems under control and they place a drain tube on the fluid around her kidney. I leave for a week-long indigo dyeing workshop five hours away in Gatlinburg, Tennessee after Mama assures me that she will be okay until I get back. The next morning, I get the call from my sister. Mama died of a quick heart attack, and her last words to the nurse are “I hope you have a good life.” She certainly had a great full life.

I am a childless woman by choice, and somewhat eccentric, and rather childlike myself. I think that not being a parent makes you less mature and more focused on selfish pursuits instead of say, regular meals and bedtime and general responsibility toward other people if you don’t fill that space with other people. When my mother used to ask me about grandbabies, I said that I would be glad to provide them if I could leave them for the weekend with a food bowl and a litterbox. So, she accepted the grandkits as her grandbabies from my side of the family.

With a beginning like that, I guess that this will be a different year end wrap up than the others. I didn’t mean to start out with that. It just happened.

I lost my mother in June. I lost my father in 1986. Nothing makes you grow up faster than when you no longer have your parents to turn to, whether through death or disease or having to become their caretakers.

I no longer have to dread this event – this life without her. It has happened.

I no longer have to worry about how long she would be able to live independently, how a nursing home might be paid for, whether she might have to be moved away from the community she loved, how her suffering would increase from day to day, both physically and mentally.

I no longer have to dread inheriting her home with my sister. It has happened. It is not fun. It is full of hoarded magazines, packed closets, knick-knacks from the 1950s, one hundred thousand pieces of paper that have to be inspected, empty frames and matboard under the beds, and requires that we pay extra bills in utilities, taxes, and maintenance for an unknown, probably years-long, amount of time in a poor county where I no longer wish to live and where houses take years to sell for far under their value.

It is full of memories and surprises and love.

It is full of how much I am like her, and how much we differ.

It is full of her humanity, her soul, her seventy years living in the same house as a wife, mother, artist, Christian, widow, traveler, community leader, friend, girlfriend, and independent woman.

Is it any wonder that I feel overwhelmed? Thank God I am not facing this alone. Without my sister and brother I don’t know how I’d do it.

Looks like I will have to make this year end post a four-parter.