Rainbow Heart

I haven’t been feeling well lately…actually waiting for a call from my doctor right now. I’m worn out and needing a bit of break from my life.

There is so much beauty and love pouring in from those who have joined us on our journey of sharing love and joy through Love Rocks ~ so much beauty. I feel blessed everyday of the gifts that those little rocks have given our hearts through our grief.

Even with all of the beauty and love though, our reality, is very painful. I immerse myself in doing, planning, making and researching, but leave little time to just be. Keeping busy is very intentional on my part ~ I often use the phrase, “Keeping busy with Love Rocks and the playground is how I mother my children in Heaven.”

I miss mothering my children so much.

This past week I had to take a break from it all so I decided to work on Abigail’s quilt square for the Threads of Life Quilt.  I miss sewing with the girls, so spending time in our studio brought me great joy. On my bulletin board behind my sewing machine hang lots and lots of love notes from my girls ~ all made in this creative space of ours.

I’ve been thinking about this quilt square a lot, knowing exactly how I wanted it to turn out but not really sure on how to make it happen.

Rainbows and hearts mean the world to us, we see them everywhere, and feel that they truly are a sign from God that our girls are taken care of. I love that when a rainbow appears in Forest Grove, our community looks up to the sky and thanks my girls. I don’t think anyone can fully understand how that love warms my broken heart.

Hearts have always been special in house…you can see them everywhere. I still, and will forever, have heart-shaped handwritten love notes from both of my girls all over the place. Abigail decided one Mother’s Day that she would take an entire heart-shaped pad of sticky notes and write “I love you mom”on everyone of them and then place them all over the house. I am happy to say that most of them are still stuck to the walls.

Anna’s favorite shape to draw was a heart. I remember her first attempts when she was a toddler and how we worked on getting the ends to meet at a point. I remember when she would sit at our table and draw heart after heart naming who they were for ~ Mama, Dad, Nana, Papa, Isabella, Ella, Rowan…and the list went on and on. I was so happy that her heart always felt so loved and that she wanted to share that with everyone.

After I had gathered the material I wanted to use I sat in our studio, trying to figure out how to get the vision in my mind into this year’s quilt square; I realized that I needed to just be for a little while before I started.

Being is hard for me because it is where I can get swallowed up in deep sorrow. Being is where the longing for my girls becomes unbearable. Being is where the images of the night my girls went to Heaven rest and if I’m not careful I can feel that intense trauma all over again.

The quilt square was due and I didn’t want to just throw something together for the sake of getting it done. I had to sit and be for it to come to life.

This is what came from being and in that being I felt only love.