Enjoy the Blossoms While They Bloom

The red bud outside our huge classroom windows is giving us quite a show today. Profuse pink blossoms are in full bloom after this warm weekend. Trapped inside a courtyard, the trees outside our windows are protected from the strong winds and even the cold spring temperatures. While other buds were nipped off with the many frosty mornings we recently had, these obviously were not affected. One wants to plant a permanent gaze at this beauty which like all the other blooming spring flowers and trees is too short lived. Seems like those plants work very hard all year to only be given a few weeks of glory. I hope that heaven will grant us blooming flowers and trees that will not fade or lose their blossoms.
I remain in a state of gloom and sorrow over my friend Mary's death. Sixty-two is not very old these days. Her life was cut short so abruptly. She didn't have time to make things ready. There wasn't time to go through the belongings and decide who would get this or that. There was no time to say good bye.. She faded so quickly. It kind of reminds me of those spring flowers. One day in beautiful bloom, the next faded and blown away. Mary was a quilter. When I visited last spring, she took great pride in showing me her beautiful sewing room where there lay several projects in the making. I wonder how many are left unfinished.
Kendra was our eighth child and last baby. At the time, we owned a children's clothing store so we dressed her like the golden child and took great pride in adorning her. I saved many of her clothes. After she married and got her own home, I suggested she take those boxes of baby clothes home. Her mother in law, Mary, suggested a memory quilt using her baby clothes. I must confess I wasn't terribly excited about cutting up those precious garments that held such wonderful memories for me. At Christmas this year, Mary presented Kendra with a memory quilt made from pieces of her baby clothes. It is absolutely breath taking. One can tell Mary used so much creative thought to make it so Kendra. She included pieces of cloth that represented Kendra's music ability and also her Dutch heritage. She cut the clothing in ways that presented that particular garment's best features. I was so touched by her gesture of love and honor to Kendra. When we heard that Mary was terminally ill, our eldest daugther, Kendra's sister said, "That quilt has just become all the more precious". My sentiments precisely. I know that as the years go by the memory quilt will become one of Kendra's warmest memories of her deceased mother-in-law. Kendra weeps that her future children will not know their grandmother. She knows that pain personally since my mother died before she was born. Even though my father remarried and Grandma Mary couldn't have been a better grandma to Kendra, Kendra still feels like she missed something in not knowing her first grandmother and of course, she did.