Excerpt:

How a 70’s Quilt Helped One Woman Reconnect With Her Mom – Stitch by Stitch

It was just an ordinary 1970s packaged quilt kit you would buy at the store. It was adorned with potted flowers and a centerpiece cornucopia, typical motifs of the era. But for Leigh, it would become much more than that, and something much more special. Her late mom Marylee, began working on the quilt sometime in the late ’70s or early ’80s. Leigh had no memories of her working on it. But one day, she discovered the unfinished quilt in her mom’s house. Her mom had only completed some cross-stitching and embroidery on the upper left square, before sitting for years collecting dust. Her mom had lupus ending up becoming one of the longest-running kidney dialysis patients, on record for 33 years. So there the quilt sat, like unfinished business.

After Leigh attended college in her home state of Wisconsin, she moved to California. There she got married and had kids, eventually settling in Orange County. With her mom far away back in Wisconsin, they did not see each other as much. During the last Christmas they spent together, her mom was weak and sick. Her bones were brittle from dialysis treatments, she was wheelchair-bound and was left an amputee after her leg shattered in a fall. On this visit, Leigh discovered her mom’s long-forgotten, and mostly unfinished quilt.

This is an excerpt of a 3068 word Short Story.