Patches in time

Our lives are full of so many ups and downs. We go through tragedy and feel like we’re the only ones who’ve ever felt those emotions and wonder how we’ll ever see peace again. However, just like it did all the days before, the sun still shines on our shoulders at the break of dawn the next morning. The birds still sing their chipper songs welcoming the day. And the crickets and frogs still lull the moon to sleep at night.

So much of our time is spent in little transitions. Before we know it, those little transitions have made up our entire life. For one woman, Martha, they were thought of as patches—patches in time. Martha was pretty lost in her life as a “dead on her feet” new parent in a dead-end job when that wonderful human being walked into her life! Georgia Sutherland. Her name spoke elegance. It spoke truth. It spoke generosity and kindness that reached far beyond the human ears. Yet, just the mention of her name seemed to calm the storms of life to all who had the honor to know her.

Over the years, every year Martha was a part of her life, she brought Martha these little Hershey kisses wrapped in a Santa Clause for her daughter at Christmastime. Some may’ve seen it and tossed it aside as it was a small trinket with a string. But not Martha. She saw Georgia’s gift of those 80+ year old hands working diligently by the lamp late at night to be sure she finished all of the ones she wanted to give out the next day. Martha saw the ambition in her heart to use small things in life to bring a smile to someone’s face. No matter what, she loved people the most.

Martha and her friend Linda went to see Georgia a few days before her time in this earthly life was over. As her still body lay on the bed, her daughter, Katy, told them all about her last days. She assured Martha and Linda that her mom could hear them and that their words would mean so much to her to know that they’d came to visit her one last time. As they talked quietly into her room, Martha was reminded just how precious that life and those little wrinkles in time meant to her. She and Georgia never talked for more than a few minutes at a time. But when they did, she made them count. She showed everyone her grit, her tenacity, her will, and her open-handedness right to the very end.

Georgia’s life wasn’t easy, by any means. But regardless of what was thrown her way, she held on to the things that mattered—her family and her passions. She could make a quilt as beautiful as the stars in the sky under a full moon. Her smile and her laugh lit up every room and every face it touched. Driving home from that final visit, Martha kept thinking of all the little patches of time that she had in this life that she didn’t even notice until they were gone. She reflected on how when kids are little, parents tell themselves they can’t wait until this phase or that phase is over. When it is, they miss it. Martha missed my little thumb-sucker every day. The thumb sucking had turned into a great big heart for bugs, animals, and humans alike and boy had that little girl changed Martha’s world. Georgia said she would. These little phases were just patches in Martha’s lifetime. A job that just pays the bills. A job that she would love and lose due to factory’s laying people off. A love that she gave her all to that wasn’t meant to be. A love that she found that she didn’t give anything to that she should have paid more attention to. Those people around her whose voices she had drown out with worry and stress on her mind… It all counts. All of it!

So, Martha wrote a blog post. In the post, she asked her dear friends and family that if they never make another promise to her at all, that they’d keep this one promise to her—don’t let time slip away. If a quilt had missing patches, it wouldn’t be very useful in keeping out the cold, she pointed out. Just as our lives wouldn’t be complete for the days we’re living now if we hadn’t gone through those patches in time, she added. Those few small moments at a time spent with one great big heart had changed her heart completely.

Georgia always held a very special place in Martha’s heart for the kindness she’d spread upon their corner of the world for more than eighty years. Martha was certain heaven had a very special place reserved for Georgia that was now full. Martha closed her blog post with reflecting on how we all make plenty of mistakes in life and have some regrets along the way. However, she knew she would never regret one moment spent with Georgia. Not one broken umbrella due to the wind whistling off the water in front of their office building. Not one skating practice during the long winters outside of their doors trying to hold one another up. And now, reflecting on those last moments she got to see Georgia before she spread her wings, Martha only regretted the fact that she couldn’t see heaven from Earth and see what a rejoicing it was when Georgia got there.

Martha went about her days ahead as she always did—work, dishes, dinner, feeding her cat, helping her daughter with homework, and bed. She got a call from a friend about a week after she had posted her blog talking about how much attention it’d gotten. Martha, curious as to what the “fuss” was all about, opened her laptop and there in front of her eyes were stories, words of gratitude and thanks from people she’d met along the way and lost track of. She had comments from neighbors down the street, the local butcher, and several area business owners all talking about ways Martha had impacted their lives in similar ways that Georgia had impacted hers. Patches, she thought. So many patches that she didn’t realize she’d even sewn into the lives of others. Each patch made their blankets of life whole. In turn, they’d made her blanket of life what it was that day at that very moment, as well.

Sometimes all it takes to reflect on the ways someone impacts the lives of others is to take a look at a simple quilt. Martha laid her head down that night under the quilt Georgia had made for her all those years ago. She was retired now and reflected on the times she’d had Georgia in her life, when her daughter was elementary-aged and when she was so full of stress in her life. The blog she’d written was a patch of time in her mind. Martha had faced Alzheimer’s for several years now and the last little bit of time had been absent in her mind completely. However, that day, her daughter read the blog Martha had written about Georgia all those years ago and for a moment, Martha’s heart was full again...all with patches in time.