while i work on the Memory Quilts for the widows and widowers who contact me, i've been working on my daughter's bridal quilt.  it's almost finished, still in the frame being quilted and i hope i can get it finished for her wedding day. Sept. 12.

it's a pretty dove and heart design i found in a book a long while back and started for her.  everything is hand-appliqued and then the quilting.  i must have a million and a half stitches in this thing.  she's told me she doesn't care if it's finished in time for the wedding, to show her guests, but i want it done, and for a purely selfish, childish reason.  her father and stepmother are coming to the wedding.  and i want two things done before then.  i want the quilt finished and i want to drop another ten pounds.  or maybe it's one thing.  i want to feel better about myself.  i'm not demanding it but it would be nice.  just a little bit of the worth i felt because of my Marine.  *sigh*

i had an old fashioned conniption yesterday afternoon late and it all rolled into this one concept. i have to live without him. he died and there's nothing i can do to alter that reality. life will forever be like this, this alone stuff, this facing life's little problems by myself. i have to deal on a day-to-day basis with all the crap that life brings as a little gift to remind us that we can be toyed with.

i was so tired at 3 PM yesterday because i'd not fallen asleep until after 3 AM and was up at 7 AM. no reason. just couldn't sleep, again. i broke down and took a Tylenol PM and blessed sleep came , but the dogs had been sleeping fine long before me and needed to go out. so i'm up. i worked on the quilts until i simply needed to nap. i have my mattress by the window so i can watch any lightning storms at night. well, there were these little tiny ants on the sill, on the glass, on the sides, crawling around like a Sci Fi Channel Most Dangerous Night on Television. i pulled the bed out. i used a sponge and Comet and a vacuum, and they the stragglers would wiggle out from a crack in the wall by the window. i got so upset for some reason. i guess because it hasn't been a week since they supposedly sprayed.

i ripped my thumbnail. did i mention that? i hit it and it ripped straight down, not across, straight down into the cuticle and it hurt like a (insert your favorite curse word here). oh my good Lord i cursed and it bled and i cried and i, yeah, i wanted him there.

i was hurt and upset and those stupid ants were making a mockery of my efforts and i wanted him there so badly that my chest hurt, my throat hurt. my heart broke all over again.

i cleaned the entire apartment. everything got vacuumed and wiped with Comet and then sprayed with that Febreze stuff and i lit candles and cried the whole time. but the whole thing broke me when i saw those little black ants still poking their enduring heads out, then one-by-one start coming back. i broke down and called my daughter. she was getting off work in half an hour and i asked her to bring me a can of Raid.

she brought the Raid and helped me finish up. then she made me promise to not do anything else for the rest of the night. so after she left, i made garlic toast and mac and cheese, covered it in catsup - the mac and cheese not the bread , that would just be gross - and ate.

then i worked on another widow's quilt back.

all this quilting keeps me occupied, brings me much needed money, and gives me self-worth. i am doing it for myself and love doing it for those in mourning for reasons that i feel deeply about. as i see it, i take clothes, adrift now without an owner, and create something that can be held, stroked, and wrapped around the left behind.

i've been left behind. that's sometimes how it feels. i feel lost, adrift, isolated, and lonely for him. so lonely for just him. he made me feel special. he loved me. i could see it in his eyes. and i've never had that before. not from my parents' and not from my first husband. my children love me, yes, but now that they're grown and have their own lives, it's a look over their shoulder or to their left or right kind of love. it's a "okay, there's mom and she's doing alright so i'll go back to doing this" kind of love. they're looking forward. i remember feeling that way, right up until my own mother was diagnosed with cancer and i quit college and moved into the hospice to live with her while she died. something like that jerks you up short. i don't want to jerk them up short. i'm here. i'm enduring. i'm just sad, sad, sad. did i mention that i miss him to a degree i never thought a human being was capable of?

so not in defiance of my daughter's wish for a restful night, it was out of a need born in loneliness that i worked on the quilts.  i need them as much as the people who want them do.

they are my self-worth.  i have to give it to myself now that my husband has died.  and i need all the self-worth i can gather.  because the creep and the creep-ess of Maine are coming to my daughter's wedding.  they've already started emailing with how we should do things and all the wonderful things the creep-ess would like to see.

i'm ignoring everything.  my daughter is ignoring them.  i'm going to bring the can of Raid.