mom's quilts

My sisters and I gathered in May to do paperwork and distribute our mother's possessions. We had tea using her teacups.
Chairs and equipment went to elderly relatives. Clothes went to a memory care patient of a granddaughter. 

Photographs are a minefield of emotions we deferred for another time.

The quilts went into several piles--for each of us and for our children and grandchildren. There were a few that mom made herself; most were made by me.

We chose one I made for mom to give her caregiver  Gwen who was a cheerful visitor to our mother every evening. 

We also pulled one patriotic one I had made for my father to go to our friend Hugo who became a US citizen this spring. Our country is better with him.

I wrote a friend, also a nurse, who was asking how I was doing:
"For years I have been telling my hospice families that our archetypes of Father=Protection and Mother=Life go far beyond our love of the person. Living that now. I can let mom go. I cannot let go of needing a mother."