Memory Quilt

I have been thinking about how to tell this story,

Do I tell you all the details?

Do I tell you names and dates?

Do I just show you the pictures, and let you know what I did?

I have decided to tell you the story without names, and not too many details.

This September Good Looking had a neighborhood reunion.

Like a high school reunion but with the kids he grew up with.

While we were there everyone was telling me how much they liked my quilt.

I had asked Good looking's facebook friends to vote for it,

and so they all knew me because of it.

Fast forward two weeks.

I was downstairs sewing, and the girls came downstairs

 to tell me that an army man was at the door.

It was one of his friends from the party.

He had googled our house

and was standing in my living room asking for a favor. 

You see I learned at the party that his son had died this summer.

He was just fifteen, he had died a month before his sixteenth birthday.

He was now in my house asking if I could make his wife a quilt

 out of his son's clothes for her Christmas present.

With out hesitation (which I think surprised him) I said yes.

Here is the finished quilt.

Like most teenage boys he liked his graphic tees, and super hero's.

His jeans, I tried to use the ones that were the most worn out.

He was a rugby player,

It just happened that the piece that was on his sleeve

ended up next to the one on his shirt.

I don't think that if I had planned it that way, it would have worked out. 

This is the shirt that he never got to wear,

it still had the tags on it.

My quilter put his name and his dates on it.

The inside boarder is his robe, and the outside his jeans.

That black square is his rugby shorts.

I bound the quilt with his flannel shirts.

Good Looking's friend insist that I put his rugby bag on the back,

and that it still be functional.

His son like most teenager's left his stuff everywhere, especially his dirty socks.

He wanted to keep the bag working, so he could keep a pair of dirty socks in this bag.

I feel so honored that I was the one with the opportunity

to keep the memories alive in such a special way.

I know it must have been so hard this Christmas, the first one with out
buying boy toys, video games, and making his favorite holiday treats.

He was their only son.

In their tragedy they were able to help three teenage boys grow to men,

with the donation of his heart, and kidney's.

Also this Christmas a father of seven was able to be at home

 with no more health worries, thanks to his liver.

I hope I did this story justice, and that you go squeeze your kids

and let them know that the world would not be the same with out them.