Lost and Found

During the couple of weeks of building permit limbo and just over a month before leaving for the site in Colorado, I decided it was about time for me to make that housewarming visit to my sister and her husband.  They had relocated last fall to El Paso after decades in upstate New York.  It had been more decades since we lived within an easy half day drive of one another and I wanted to establish what I hope will be an easy exchange of short visits several times a year.

I decided to go alone mid-week for just a couple of nights, my rationale being to get a little solo sister time -- it had been almost two years since we were together, sadly a shorter separation than typical for us -- and to avoid leaving our very elderly and much beloved dog Max without one of his "humans".  The outward bound trip was lovely, less than five easy hours on an empty stretch of I-10 watching the Sonoran desert transition into Chihuahuan, with vast stretches of bajada gilded with carpets of Mexican poppies before butting up against distant rugged mountains.

My sister's home is warm and inviting with charming river stone garden walls, good-sized bird-filled trees and views of the nearby Franklin Mountains.  We walked her handsome and gentle German shepherd, Luke, on three miles of the Rio Grande river walk, throwing the Frisbee for him and trying to identify water birds.  We sat out back during the slow twilight while her husband grilled steaks and salmon and veggies over a mesquite fire and then ate the delicious results.

At some point during the day my sister had mentioned a quilt she had that she wanted to give to me.  She wasn't sure about the origin, but thought it was from our grandmother we'd lived with until I was nine and she was three.  I thought she was talking about a partially completed quilt I'd seen long ago at my mother's, but I didn't associate it with my grandmother, the woman who'd been more of a mother to me than my own Mother in my early years (much to my Mother's irritation I'm sure).  When my sister brought the quilt out I almost fell off the couch -- it was THE quilt I'd grown up with, a wedding ring quilt hand patched and quilted -- every stitch -- by the hands of my Grandmother.  It was the quilt that always covered me when I was feeling puny and was upstairs for special Grandma treatment, the one when miserable from one or another childhood ailments I'd try to find all the matching fabrics, and there were many to find matches for.  Its puckered worn surface was so familiar, the softly colored patterns on the white background, all edged in a rosy pink calico.  I thought of it many times over the years, assuming it had gone to the "other" part of the family over three decades ago.

Early the next morning I got a call from my husband that our sweet old dog was having a crisis, probably a stroke, and could not stand.  He took Max to the vet where they cared for him until I could make what now was a too long and too sad drive of over 300 miles to a place and task I did not want to face.  Shortly after arriving at the veterinary hospital my husband and I performed the last kind act we could for Max, holding him close while he was euthanized.

During that long day I did not know I had that many tears in me.  Part of them were shed on that old quilt, folded into a soft memory of comfort and love, and unexpectedly found during a time when something so beloved was lost.  I only wish my old companion, Max, could have lasted the several decades the quilt has existed instead of the 16 years -- extraordinary for large dog -- that he had been able to give me.  We had hoped Max would be with us this summer in the Rockies, snoozing in the sun and watching the chipmunks during the cabin build, but that is not to be.

Back home, while I laid on the couch with a cold wet cloth on my face, so distressed that I feared I might join Max in the Great Beyond, my husband brought a large box from the porch that had been delivered that day.  I knew it was the quilt I had bought online for the cabin.  It took me a few days to have the heart to open it, but I was not disappointed when I did.  It is nothing like the delicate handwork of my Grandmother's quilt, but intricate and well-crafted enough, and the colors are those of a ponderosa pine forest at dusk.  It will look wonderful in the cozy bedroom of our new cabin, a tailored denim bed skirt below and made up with sage green chambray sheets; a nice place to rest after another lovely long day in the thin clean air at near 9,000 feet.

My Grandmother's quilt is now folded across the foot of the old painted brass bed in our Tucson guest room, only for its beauty and cherished memories.  It is too fragile for actual use, that is until this found again quilt is needed for a loss that is almost too much to bear.

For more about Max and what he meant to us see the Tribute to a Good Dog post in my Writing Down the Desert blog.