It's November!

So I'm ten days late. What else is new from me lately?  And because I'm catching up again, this is a long post. Grab a glass of wine or mug of tea and stay awhile.

If you haven't been over to the November WCS gallery yet, please do.  For November we all made layouts about family stories.  Here's my take on the theme (black frame is for your viewing pleasure):

I just love how each month the gallery is full of so many different takes on just one theme. 

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Halloween was sheer madness for us again this year.  With our son's birthday falling on Halloween and birthday bowling parties and such, it makes a fun but full and tiring day.  Here are some highlights:

Aidan's fun cake from our local grocery store.  He loved it!

Considering we had 15 kids ages seven and under hopped up on Sprite and birthday cake hefting 7 pound balls bigger than their heads and trying to sling them down an ultra-waxed slip-n-slide, things went very well. My house wasn't trashed, I didn't overbuy anything and I had the perfect number of goodie-bags. Now we just have to get his thank-you notes out before his next birthday sneaks up on us.

After the party we got home, put The Baby (I need to start calling her something else now that she's three, but am at a loss for what.  Miss Poopy Head is fitting these days, but simply calling her by her name usually doesn't suit her either. Hmm.) down for her nap, and finally got to carving our pumpkins. I normally enjoy pumpkin-carving, but for some reason this year the only thing I felt was annoyed and frustrated that the carving tool I bought wouldn't have done a good job of carving soft ice cream.  It was kinda like using an emory board to fell a tree.  They came out cute, however, thanks to the rum-and-Coke I chugged while hurling silent f-bombs at the pumpkin guts embedded under my fingernails.

Then I sent the kids with Chris and my mom around the hood begging for candy, Aidan as Spiderman, Makena and Nadia as princesses, while I handed out candy to way more children than I've ever seen in this neighborhood. But that's really okay with me. I handed out all the candy and was happy about that. Until my kids got home with their loot. I love keeping our dentist happy.

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And yes, I've been quilting.  I still have a few that I'm working on, but these are ones I wrapped up recently.  This purple one is for Nadia's birthsister for Christmas (ssshhhhhhhh):

 

I'm really proud of how this one came out. It's not perfect by any means, but it's my most adventurous quilt to date and the center of each block features my first free-motion quilting.  This was made using inexpensive FQs from Jo-ann's and white jelly roll strips from Moda. The back was pieced using left overs from the FQs I used for the top. 

This next one I had intended for my friend's son, but I really, really screwed this one up somehow. It's not square by over an inch on each side, and the backing got messed up during the quilting process which was done before I got my walking foot, and I didn't know it was all messed up until I was done with the quilting. (Note to self - always check the backing of your quilts during the quilting process in case you manage to screw things up again. Which you know is inevitable.) But it's okay, really. Aidan's been using it for his couch-potatoing and really likes it.  I'll get working on another one for my friend's son next week.

I'm finishing up a string quilt and a quilt I'm working on for my aunt whose name I drew for the Christmas gift exchange before I move on to the next few projects.

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And in case you don't already know, I'm no longer on the design team at Studio Calico. And I'm so sad about it.  I just needed to lighten my load a bit and resigned my spot on the team with the October kit. And I'm bummed, too, because they're releasing their own line of scrappy goodies now and I blew my chances to play with them for free. And November's kit freakin' rocked.

I miss you gals!

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And on a bummer note, today is the tenth anniversary of my dad's passing. He was just 49 years old when he died in his sleep of a massive heart attack. A year after he died, Chris and I went to Minnesota for a visit. I wrote this essay shortly thereafter and these words are just as true today, ten years later:

"I recently went to Minneapolis to visit my step-family on what would have been my dad's 50th birthday. He died in his sleep on November 10, 1999. He was 49 years old.

He is buried at Ft. Snelling National Cemetery, which is typical of all other national cemeteries, with perfect row after perfect row of white marble headstones. I remember driving by these cemeteries as a child, thinking about how cool it was that as you drove past all the headstones lined up so that all you could see were white lines. It never occurred to me that someday my feelings about these perfectly manicured fields and their odd crop would turn from wonder to grief and sadness.

Now, instead of pondering their beauty and symmetry, I find it upsetting to arrive in such a place to visit my dad's ashes, and to have difficulty locating him among the masses of headstones. His headstone, his name, his rank, the war in which his fought and lost so much, his silly middle name - lost among all the others. It's not fair that he is not given the plot that stands out, that makes passersby take notice that someone's father, husband, grandfather and friend has died, and that his remains are buried here. How many people in the past year have walked over that spot of his in their own search, not realizing that MY father lies just beneath them? Don't they know who he is? And who are all of these strangers surrounding him? Is my dad comforted by the company he'll keep for eternity?

Just after his funeral, my siblings and I gathered around this small plot and laid out all the flowers from the mortuary. They spilled over onto the surrounding plots there were so many - from my mother and stepfather, from my grandparents, from his friends and coworkers, his sisters and his five kids and three grandkids. His headstone wouldn't be ready for about six months, so we paid our respects to this bear of a man whose final resting place was marked by only a small, worn, bent green metal card holder stuck into the freshly-turned dirt.  We drew hearts in the dirt, took some pictures, and laughed and cried about the way he was, and perhaps about the ways we wished he had been.

His headstone has since been erected and the grass has grown in. You can't tell now if he was buried in the past year or twenty years ago.  But I know.  For the rest of my life I will remember the phone call, the plane ride, the funeral, sharing my grief with a stepmother I never really understood, half-siblings I never really knew, and with his friends who never knew he had an older daughter and son in California.

I knew my father the least of all my siblings. There is no doubt that we all remember, resent, forgive, and miss him for whatever he was to each of us. My siblings and I are the best and worst of him, and the best and worst of our mothers, just different recipes. I see so much of my dad in my brother, Bill - his looks, his mannerisms, his abilities and interests - and so little of him in me. I don't know what my siblings will remember most about our dad. I'm sorry to say that we didn't talk much about that at the funeral or in the days that followed. I don't know them and what their lives were like with him, and they don't know me and what my life was like without him. Be we all miss the same man for whoever he was to each of us.

I miss the 4:00 AM phone calls and his dirty, corny, highly groanable jokes.  I miss the way he called me "baby". I miss the way that, when I was a kid, he would tackle me to the floor and rub his whiskered face into my neck until I laughed so hard that I couldn't breathe. I miss the chances I had but never took to visit him in Minnesota while he was alive - he always wanted me to. I miss the chances I had but never took to ask him about Vietnam, and about his side of his courtship and marriage to my mother. I never asked him about his childhood. I miss the man what was my daddy, whether or not he would have been the daddy I yearned for as a child. I miss the man I never really knew or understood and took for granted would always be around.

There is no good or right way to deal with the death of someone you love. There are no circumstances under which death and mourning are easily managed. There is no way to ease the pain. And just when you think you're able to talk about it all without crying, think again. You'll see a face, hear a song, remember a moment, catch a whiff of his cologne on a stranger, or have a dream, and the pain and all of its tears are right there, just below the surface. Your mind even plays these awful tricks where you start to imagine losing another of your loved ones and you can't even think about them without thinking of them dead and how much it will hurt. You'll wish you had more control over your brain and your emotions.

I know death is inevitable. It's one of the consequences of living and loving. It's something we'll all go through, indirectly and, finally, directly. I have asked myself repeatedly if losing him suddenly was any better than after a long illness. I've sought counsel from friends who've lost their parents, and what I've realized is that a long illness would have given me the time to ask the questions, heal old wounds, gather history  and prepare myself, but at the expense of his prolonged pain and suffering. Mourning his death and moving on without him would only have been delayed. In some ways, I'm thankful for his sake that he died young, that he didn't have to go through the painful aging process, watching his independence disappear and his quality of life deteriorate. I envy him his sleepy passing. I wonder what he was dreaming about."

My father was a soldier for nearly 25 years. He did two tours of Vietnam and served his country at several posts, both here and in Europe. The coincidence of my father dying on the eve of Veteran's Day was fitting and appropriate. And two of my half-sibs are Army officers. I am eternally grateful for and very proud of these soldiers and for the sacrifices they are making.

Please join me and my family in thankful prayer this Veteran's Day in honor of soldiers and veterans who have pledged and lost their lives for our freedoms. Thank you.

Comments

[Elizabeth]

Whew.
That was worth reading, every single word.
xxoo

[Carrie K]

That was a doozy of a post lady :) exceptional tribute to your father. i love how real you kept it...the good times and the regrets really resonated with me as i feel similar things in the loss of my mother. i always feel such a kinship with those who have lost parents as there is simply no way to explain it to someone who has not. so, thank you...

and this line "thanks to the rum-and-Coke I chugged while hurling silent f-bombs at the pumpkin guts" BEST LINE EVER :) totally cracked me up!!

and...the quilts are beautiful! i love the red and blue one! i wish i had a "mess up" quilt that beautiful :) i was a huge fan of yours at SC and was sad to see you go also!

[marnie flores]

whoa. you wield a powerful pen, miss tina c.
thinking of you today.
marnie

[Jody]

Tears are hitting my keyboard as I type...so very hauntingly eloquent.
I hope you are hugged very tightly today :)

[Cathy]

That was one of the most beautiful pieces of truth I have ever read. I don't know what made click on your blog this morning (Nov. 12th), but today, my father passed away exactly 16 months ago. He was a veteran as well, and I never called him on Veteran's Day to thank him for serving our country. But yesterday, since the kids were out of school, we took a trip to the cemetery to say thank you in person. And after leaving wished, more than anything, I had taken the time to do that when he was still here.

[kribss]

love your posts {wish you would more often} and thank-you for the reminder- to honor those who fought/is still fighting for our freedom and love those that are still with us every day.

[Lauren Hawley]

Well, Tina, that is a beautiful and profound post. And it's one more thing we have in commom. My father died at age 37 of a heart attack. I feel like I hardly knew him because I was only 4 at the time, but I still mourn the loss of who I think he would have been and there has always been that hole in my life that he should have filled. Thanks for sharing your experience and thoughts.