Quilting, as told by the pieces.

Adoption is like making a quilt, if you view the quilt making from the point of view of the fabric:

There were once these various whole, uniquely designed pieces of fabric. Different colors, different textures, different grains, different fibers, different weaves, different vibes, but they were each part of their own bolt. Bundled with their own cloth, then some thing happened, and they were separated from the bolt, cut, ripped, torn. 

Something happened, and they were all now pieces.  All the pieces were then gathered up and arranged and rearranged, pressed, and bound together with thread. This seems like a good idea,  because as scraps and pieces, we are all lost, but as quilts, we hope to be beautiful. 

 

 People like to skip to admiring a beautiful product, but they forget the point of view of the fabric. 

That binding fabric together with thread requires extra support, pressing with heat, and continual piercing with needles as they try to fill the holes, close the gaps, create a unity that had not previously been imagined by the fabrics on the bolts, and may not feel instantly natural to the pieces. Quilts have to be reinforced because blankets with that many seams are more susceptible to tears.  They have to be handled with care, because something with that much intricate work put into it is more easily damaged by a careless visitor. 

Quilts can be exquisitely beautiful because of the careful arrangement of fabrics from a variety of sources, because of the delicate skill required to create balance, and the time and work needed to turn small, seemingly random pieces into a big, cohesive, intentional blanket. In that beauty, it is easy for observers to forget the feelings of the fabrics that were first turned into pieces and then arranged, rearranged, ironed, pinned, pierced, bound, and trimmed to create a blanket that hopefully turns out beautifully.

The fabric endures so much more to become a quilt than it generally does to become a comforter.  

Adoption can be a beautiful thing. However, because it is dealing with small pieces being patched together, it can also be an arduous, tedious, fragile, and sensitive task for families that become quilts. 

Even if they eventually become strikingly beautiful quilts someday, all of the pieces, experience -and often silently recall- the overwhelming task of going from fabric, to pieces, to quilt. 

Adoption is never a simple project. 

(All images taken from Google's Free to Share image collection.)

Fortunate

"So, are you out the door at the clock today, or are you hanging around to get work done?"

My coworker asks at lunch the Friday before the school break finally arrives.

 

"Out the door!" I respond, "I have stuff to do!"

"Errands?"

"No, I'm headed to the coast."

"Niiice, the beach!"

"Meh, the beach may happen, but I'm not much for the beach. I told my Grandad I'd visit, and they just happen to live near the beach."

A pause happens. 

I expect to hear something about how cute or quaint it is that I would use vacation time to visit grandparents.

 The pause extends long enough to become thoughtful.

"You're fortunate, you know."

The normally jocular tone has turned completely pensive, 

"Not too many adults still get to visit their grandparents."

 And now it's my turn to take a pensive pause.

It doesn't feel right to go into great detail for my coworker about how fortunate is too brief of a statement.

 Sometimes I get busy, and distracted from this fortune. Even during the times I am careless though, I am still greatly blessed.

But it's nice to be reminded of what I am.

So I nod.

"Yes, very fortunate."

I'll be there...

(Quick warning: In order to find photos for this post, I had to dig through my old honest-to-goodness-real-film photos from my childhood point and shoot cameras.. there is only so much quality one can expect from an 8-16 year old with a 35mm and a questionable quality of scanner!)

I really won on the day they were handing out grannies.

 My Granny has many grandchildren and great-grandchildren. She was the kind of grandmother who could halt a displeasing behavior with a few curt words, but still manage to make a grandchild feel extremely, securely loved and like a uniquely special individual. She played our silly games(even though she disliked most of them), watched our age-level movies, and read our grade level books, and generally valued our personhood at whatever age we were, which allowed us a level of closeness that other people might not achieve with grandparents.


The same curiosity and independence that were the bane of her cooking abilities formed the random escapades she invited us along that formed of our now cherished memories. I say all this just to preface what an important and special role Granny has held in my life. She died in July of 2008, and while occasionally I regret that I could not steal more time with her, I also feel privileged- as the daughter of her fifth and youngest child- to have been able to know Granny for as long as I did. I am grateful for the time I got, and as she knows Jesus, I am glad she is finally with him.

I am at peace about Granny going to be with Jesus. Some days though, I miss her more than others. There are some situations that spike an automatic desire to go visit Granny: 

Coming across a bag of Lays sour cream and onion flavored potato chips tucked away in a corner. Sitting down to a pile of of books, or perusing a used bookstore. Driving to the coast. Taking a stroll on a lovely day through a park or particularly forested area. Settling down to a cup of tea, or soup. Finding an excitingly strange foreign film, or watching a great book-based movie.

It is during these moments that I catch myself mentally loading up the car to go to Arroyo Grande and looking forward to a lunch at the Back Door Deli.

I remember several years ago, when my two youngest siblings were in those years of annoying car trips. We often drove to the coast as a family, spending the weekend with Granny and Grandad. While Melody and James were between the ages of 4 and 10, the ever present question was "Are we there yet? How much longer?"

They asked this so many times that Mom came up with an auto-response that soon became so traditional that even after they outgrew that stage, someone would always ask the annoying question just to hear the response before we got there.

"We'll be there when we see Granny waiting for us on the front porch waving."

Granny often did that. When she knew we were getting close, she would go stand on the front porch and wait for us to arrive. It became a joke those times when she wasn't there on the porch that even after we were there, we weren't really there until we saw Granny.

Sometimes, I drive past her old home, and there is a quiet pang of loss, knowing that she wouldn't be waiting for me there, if I stopped by. Granny's house was always a sanctuary: leave all bullies, worries, and stresses on the freeway, they couldn't come through Granny's door. Recently, during one of those pangs, I reminded myself what a relief it is that she is in heaven, fully well, unrestricted and rejoicing with Jesus.

I love Jesus, too. There is a certain amount of comfort I take in knowing that not only will I be able to bask in the presence of my savior, I'll get to see Granny again. Somehow, knowing that my once tangible Granny is there in Heaven makes my Jesus, who I have never physically hugged, feel even more tangible in those times when I really need a hug. 

Even during the difficult times, I can keep moving forward, because eventually, I'll get to go to my real sanctuary. It is striking to me how similar life is to the drive I so frequently used to make to Arroyo Grande: long, steep, and twisting, sometimes exhausting, other times it isn't all that bad, occasionally fun, occasionally boring, filled with glimpses of breathtaking beauty and unexpected dangers, some days it goes by quickly, others it drags on forever, but in the end, it is well worth the trip. There are phases in my life when the trip is so long, so foggy and dark, so scary, and exhausting that I hear my soul wearily nagging God with that annoying question. 


But I already know.

I'll be there when I can see Granny waiting for me on the front porch waving.
 And this time, Jesus will be standing right next to her.

Until then, I'll keep traveling, and usually, I'll enjoy that traveling.

However, when I do finally get there, I want a hug from both.

Happy Birthday, Dad

Today, my dad is 50.

There is a lot that can be said about him.

I'll start with one of the most obvious: he is a horrible person to try to find a recent picture of. This is because he is constantly dodging the camera, insisting on being the one to take the picture, or he is moving (he never stops moving unless he is sleeping...and that's not really an attractive picture), or if he catches you focusing a camera on him, he gives you the "If you take that picture, I'll ground you for the rest of your life." glare(which fails more and more, as the majority of his kids have moved out).

Dad is 50 and I am 25. Weird.  What is even weirder for me is to think that 25 years ago, Dad was holding his 1 month old first born, thinking about what kind of parent he would be.

Well, 25 years later, let me tell you about the man who raised me.  He is the dad who started with nothing, and scratched out a living at every odd job available to provide for his family.  For the sake of his family, he did something that likely scared him into needing a change of pants: he went back to school.

He has provided an existence for his kids where they rarely knew they were lacking.  If he couldn't buy it at full price, he found it in a yard sale and then fixed it, or if that option wasn't available, he often made toys for us.  The toys he made were by far the best toys we have owned.

Deny it as he might, he is a mechanical genius.  He looks at something and understands how it works. If anything breaks, Dad can fix it.  One of the first phrases learned by the toddlers in our family was "Fik it, daddy."  And that rings true not only for dolls whose heads fell off, and action figures who no longer said their phrases, but it continues to ring true for heater cores in a certain vehicle that would have otherwise cost $800 to repair (twice), trucks that need new speakers and engine work, and more.

He took us on the adventures our hearts thrived for: sleeping on a bluff that turned island every time the tide rose, petting the galapagos tortoise at the zoo(if anybody asks, that never happened), deep sea fishing, swinging on the rope chair over the stream.

He drove us hard to match his work ethic when we were working with him.  We cursed him for it as teenagers, but learned quickly when we got into the working world that we were ahead of the curve. Because of dad, we tend to earn good reputations within our jobs. 

To work with Dad you must learn to be hungry. Dad sees no point in wasting the 15-30 minutes it would take to stop and eat lunch. He has offered to take me out to breakfast, and decided to make a quick stop at the apartments to look at something that needed a repair.  Each time we finished one thing, he would see another "small" job that needed to be done.  That day, we finally got breakfast at 6 pm.  Beware of the breakfast offer!

He loves a good pun....and a bad one.  He's a candy monger who loves to share (both his and yours).  He loves to scuba dive, especially if he can bring up lobster with him.  He and I share the same joy of standing the breeze and pretending we can fly. He loves to give presents, and is the hardest person ever to buy presents for.  He is insanely artistic, though he also denies this.

And this blog has reached a point in length that he would probably decide not the waste the time reading it, so I could technically start adding insults in and get away with it, but as today is his birthday, I won't.

Happy Birthday, Dad!

Love,
  -Caitlin