A Tribute to the Quilting Bee

How things can change in a month.  Sometimes for the good and then sometimes not.

Late on the evening of Feb. 1, Worker Bee got a text from his brother saying that their mom had just been diagnosed with cancer.  Cancer of the pancreas, liver, and possibly lungs.  The doctors said 90 days. She stayed with us for four weeks.

This post is so very difficult to write.  I loved my mother-in-law very much.  She was a role model for  my daughter and me.  She was generous and very loving - especially to her family - and I was lucky and blessed enough to be loved by her too because I married her baby boy.

I haven't written a lot about her before.  She wasn't a part of our daily lives like my mom is, but she was always in our heart.

When Worker Bee and I met in college, his parents lived in the Bay Area, one of the loveliest parts of our state.  I loved going up to visit them and I think we must have gone up about once a month.  I remember being so impressed with how warm and inviting their house was.  And thus began the lessons I feel I learned from Helen (aka The Quilting Bee).  From her I knew I wanted our home to be inviting.  I knew I wanted it to feel warm.  I wanted for it to feel cozy.

At that time, she was also very into gardening.  Worker Bee shared that love with her too.  And then he shared it with me.  I learned the names of plants and how to care for them from her.

Then, shortly before Worker Bee and I got married, his parents were transferred to Ft. Worth, Texas.  And again, Helen made the house in Texas into a warm and welcoming space.  I also saw her make a new group of friends.  I've almost always lived in the same town I grew up in and my parents grew up in and my grandparents grew up in.  I marveled at how she did that.  How did she even know what to do to make new friends? 

And she became a quilter in Texas.

She made beautiful quilt after beautiful quilt.  I'm not sure how many she ended up making, but each grandchild received one, and there are 11 of them.

This is the last quilt she made and she made it for Baby Bee.

The back is in Mary Engelbreit fabric - I think she might have picked that just for me!

I want you to know that she could do anything she set her mind to do.

She took cabinet making classes (I never knew that - she might have kept that one secret so I wouldn't ask her to build me a new kitchen) and learned how to build furniture.

She took classes on ornamental horticulture and worked towards getting her degree in that.  Sunset magazine came out and took pictures of her succulent Christmas tree.  She won blue ribbons for her plants at the Santa Clara County Fair.

She refinished furniture.  She reupholstered furniture.  About eleven years ago Helen and Bob (my father-in-law, he passed away in 2004) flew out to see us and I convinced them to reupholster our couch.  It was amazing!  They made such a fabulous team.

She had great style too.  As was said at the memorial service, she had sass and she had class.

After Bob died, she uprooted herself again and moved to Louisville which was closer to her oldest son and much of his family.  And she made a new group of friends again.  How did she do that again?  At the age of 74? 

Helen was born in Wisconsin, then moved to Illinois (where Worker Bee was born), then to Southern California, then to Northern California, and to Texas and then Kentucky.  She made friends wherever she went, but family was first.  

I didn't mention what a bridge fiend she was.  She loved to play games, but bridge was her favorite.  She tried to teach me a couple of times, but I just wasn't interested enough.  Worker Bee likes to play bridge, but who our age plays bridge?

So, today, Helen, on what would have been your 84th birthday, I am finally able to write down a tribute to you and how much you meant to all of us.  We miss you every day and especially when Baby Bee dances.  I know how much you loved to see her dance.  I imagine you dancing away in heaven with Bob (after he has cooked a gourmet dinner and dirtied every pan, utensil, and dish in the house).  

Love you!

Where I Was...

Our little family has talked a lot of 9/11 the past few days.  Baby Bee does not remember it.  She was only 6 months old on that day.

It was a normal work day for our family.  Worker Bee had already left for his office (he had to be there by 5 AM our time) and I always fed Baby Bee around 5:30 and then put her down for a short sleep while I finished getting ready for the day.   I usually turned on the local news to watch while I fed her.  The local news folk started talking about a plane hitting the World Trade Center.  All I could imagine was some small plane going horribly off course - I couldn't even conceive of a large plane being that far off course.  At that point, they started showing footage, but I still couldn't tell that a large plane had made that first impact.

I called Worker Bee on the phone and told him about the crash.  We speculated as to what might have caused this horrible accident.  As we talked and Baby Bee took her bottle the unimaginable happened......a second plane flew into the other tower.  Even at that point, all I could think was that something horrible must have happened to air traffic control to send these planes so off course that they would crash into the World Trade Center buildings.  

And then.....I realized.  These crashes were deliberate.  We had been attacked.

And my heart ached.  My heart ached for all those lost.  My heart ached for the blow to our country.  And most of all, my heart ached for my sweet little baby girl that would grow up in a world where things like this could happen.  

And yet.....out of that tragedy we went on.  We had to.  What choice did we have.  But we will never forget.  And I won't let Baby Bee forget either.  

We are too strong to let them win.  Ever.  

God Bless America,

(vintage postcard image courtesy of Vintage Holiday Crafts)

Visitors from the Past

Sweet Bee Cottage

Saturday we had the most interesting drop in visitors.  People I've never met before and I let them into my house and it wasn't that clean.  Why would I do such a thing?

Our surprise visitor (and his wife) was a son of the family that built our house.  We were working in the front yard when they pulled up and we started chatting and next thing I knew I invited them in.

What a treat it was.  Our house was built in 1951 when he was in sixth grade, I believe, and it was one of the first in our neighborhood.  He told tales of digging tunnels and caves under all the open land.  He told of sending morse code over lines his father strung in the backyard.  He told of flashing signals with flashlights to neighbors across and down the street.  He showed us where he and his two brothers and parents ate dinner every night.  He told of the dog that laid in front of the wall heater in the kitchen and would then fart.  He showed us where his brother and mother played the piano.  (Funny, I've often thought our piano would be just perfect in the same spot.)  

His tales explained mysteries about our house.  Why were there so many electrical outlets on our garage workbench?  Why was there a hole in the ceiling of the workbench area? How old is our huge Modesto Ash in the middle of the backyard?  Why are there two sets of wiring in our house?  

We are the fourth owners of this house and most of the previous owners have passed on.  What a delight it was to meet someone who could share its stories with us.  

I wish I had thought to take pictures.

Do you wonder what stories will be told about your home?