SEAMS

This would make a good quilt design

Ever seen a crazy quilt, made from scraps and beautifully decorated at every seam?  There's no disputing the beauty of crazy quilts -- to me, they embody a "waste not, want not" approach to living, which I find comforting and enriching.  I also like them because of their beauty.  The older Victorian era ones are my personal favorites.  Look closely: one can see the fabrics of a time gone by, and the unique way in which the scraps of someone's life were fused together into a whole that was both functional and beautiful.  Being a widow is a compilation of fragments and scraps, and a new perspective about how to piece seemingly divergent elements into a whole.  My life today is beautiful in many ways, and there are many, many seams and patches.  The stitching comes loose at these seams when I'm under stress.  Miss Kitty's newly diagnosed epilepsy and the resulting medical regime she is on has thrown me way, way out of balance.  I'm frayed at the seams.  Yesterday, the vet gave me some very specific advice about how to care for her and what may be ahead.  The specificity of her professional advice calmed me down because I want so much to know if this and that symptom/side effect is lasting or transitory.  What's going to happen next?  This process of caring for a seriously ill loved one has brought forward a great deal of pain related to caring for my dying husband, who had cancer.  It's very difficult to know from day to day what is going to happen next in a cancer fight.  Everyone's life is thrown into a wait-and-see mode, which doesn't really fit well with a normal life these days.  This kind of event puts a lot of strain on all the various pieces of my patched together widow life.  All I can do is remember the two certainties of my life today.  1) There is a god; 2) I am not her.  It takes faith to believe that Miss Kitty is okay, that she was brought into my life in particular for a reason, and that I will be a match for whatever patience and faith is required of me.  That reminds me that this morning I became a member of a church in my community.  This was a big step for me, because I am not a particularly religious person.  I joined because I like to sing the old familiar hymns in a divine space that gets me just an inch or two closer to my spiritual core. After all, I find Ted there.  I did it because I want to help others in the community.  I admit that I also did it to be around people --including people my own age -- in an environment in which I can retain my relative anonymity.  While some people join a church to engage in socializing, I joined as a method of holding together all the bits and pieces I have melded into a meaningful life.  In fact, the church I joined is a Methodist Church, started by Oxford students, including John Weston, who were trying different methods of exemplifying the grace of god in the world.  Other students at Oxford during this time would deride them as "Those Method-ists!" 
Easter is coming, and I plan to host an egg hunt for my grandchildren.  I like this season because the secular message and the religious one are the same:  It takes faith to believe in spring, flowers, baby birds, and the beauty of the natural world when everything is dark.  But there will be spring.  Of course, faith in spring doesn't actually make spring happen.  Or does it?