The Ninigret Quilters held their annual show in Westerly this past weekend. I managed to get down there on Sunday morning for a look at the beautiful quilts produced in the past year or so.

I’m obsessed with star quilts lately. Check out the border on this one.

And this:

Last week, in the enormous lobby of the Farmstead Inn in Shipshewana, I was able to admire these:

I think I need to make one of these.

I missed my mother yesterday. I don’t say that lightly. It was a rare and overwhelming feeling, as our last years together had been extremely difficult and painful.

She loved to go to quilt shows with me and never turned down an invitation to get in the car and go off for an adventure that always included lunch. She delighted in pausing in front of a group of quilts and exclaiming loudly, “These are nice, but YOURS are so much more BEAUTIFUL!”

I would cringe and try to distract her, but inwardly I was trying not to howl with laughter.

At one show we learned how to make pumpkins out of rolls of toilet paper, autumn-themed fabrics and cinnamon sticks. She would shop for Christmas gifts for her friends and ask me questions about whatever notion or pattern I was studying. She never wanted to make quilts, but she found the process interesting even though she could never figure out how I came to be a quilter.

When I told her I was going to make some “Quilts of Valor” (donated to veterans in recognition and gratitude for their service), she asked to come along to the quilt shop with me. And then she bought a pile of red, white and blue fabrics to contribute to the cause.

She was always very generous that way.

So yesterday I finally felt her loss. Which was such a good thing, no matter how sad, despite blinking back tears in the middle of the show. Because that means I’ve begun to forgive her–and forgive myself–for those final years of hurt feelings and resentment and exhaustion.

I fled the quilt show to cry in the privacy of my car. And then it was time to get on with things. I planned to stop at Aldi’s to buy the ingredients for meatballs. While I was parking the car, daughter-in-law Amber called to reassure me that she was home and recovering from an emergency appendectomy (yikes!). It was so good to hear her voice–we had been worried. I made a quick trip into a crowded store and hurried home. Banjo Man needed the car, so there was little time for dallying.

This morning I realized I’d forgotten to buy eggs, a crucial ingredient for meatballs. Banjo Man has gone to Walmart this afternoon and taken my list with him, so the meatballs might end up waiting for tomorrow. He is never in any hurry to leave a grocery store.

In the meantime, I think I will make a cup of tea and think about star quilts. And how much my mother would have enjoyed yesterday’s outing, taking every chance she could to brag about her daughter’s quilts.

It feels good to laugh about that again.