Tag: in her own language (Page 16 of 16)

Happy Fourth of July!

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She draws, I stitch.
She is my developmentally disabled sister-in-law, Nancy,
and I am Jeanne, the woman who flat-out loves her.
Go here to start at the beginning and read your way current.

nancy has had some health issues
this past year,
some of it age-related,
some of it pharmaceuticals-related,
some of it of unidentified origin,
which is not unusual
with a woman who can’t tell you
where it hurts
or even that she just doesn’t feel good.

here she is writing her name: n-a-n-c-y.
although it looks more like n-a-n
then n-
then indecipherable squiggles.

this one moves me
because in her signature,
i see a reflection,
a mirror image, really,
of what is happening in her life:
a disintegration of
the nancy she was
into a woman
who isn’t sure of
who she is
any more.

~~~~~~~~~

She draws, I stitch.
She is my developmentally disabled sister-in-law, Nancy,
and I am Jeanne, the woman who flat-out loves her.
Go here to start at the beginning and read your way current.

I may wind up doing this one over. I’m stitching through a foundation paper. I scanned each drawing then printed each out onto a sheet of this paper that was then pinned to the fabric panel. I stitch right through the paper then tear the paper away when i’m finished. I didn’t pull the thread tight enough on this one, was treating it too gingerly I guess. but still, I’ve started.

~~~~~~~~~

She draws, I stitch.
She is my developmentally disabled sister-in-law, Nancy,
and I am Jeanne, the woman who flat-out loves her.
Go here to start at the beginning and read your way current.

you get an idea.
you’re excited,
and before you can talk yourself out of it,
you make a shopping list
and gather materials
you’ll need.
everything is nice and orderly.
you are ready to start.

somewhere in the middle
things go wonky.
you get confused.
nothing looks the way you’d imagined.
you are lost.

you persevere,
trusting, hoping, thinking,
and maybe even praying a little bit
in your own way of praying.
maybe the entire process
is praying, now that you think about it.

eventually
order is restored.
you are excited again,
eager to move forward.
you may not know how the finished
project will look,
but you know what you need to do next,
and that’s enough
for now.

~~~~~~~~~

And so I begin this a special project that begs my attention. Though it will be documented here on Gone With The Thread, a blog created specially for irrepressible pursuits of my heart, you can read a little bit more about the inception of the idea here.