Lost

Good Morning;
I haven't been lost or gone away but I've been absent from this blog. I've been wanting to come back and edit and add pictures but I just haven't - no excuses. Busy trying to find myself since my aunt passed away at 94. It's funny I never thought that I'd be like this. I'm mature, I'm aware, I was a counselor for many years and I've helped a lot of people with their grieving but it is different.
I cannot explain the lightness, the freedom I felt from being or feeling responsible for my aunt and uncle's care. It isn't that I don't or didn't love them but I've been looking at my self and my feeling of being responsible. I've come from the place of feeling responsible for the whole world to knowing I'm responsible for myself only. What do I mean by that? I've always, from the time I was little, felt responsible for all my family, and all my friends, and all my clients when I was a counselor. I was a "super-responsible" person and to quote a friend "that ain't healthy". I'm not taking care of anyone else now but myself. My mom and I had a talk about that and she told me "you have to look after yourself" when I told her I wasn't going to look after anyone. Mom is 89, still doing good except for a bum leg and she has lots of people who will look after her.
Today I decided I wanted to up-date this blog and I wanted to put pictures of my quilted wall-hanging here because it is hanging in the show at the Woodland Cultural Centre here in Brantford along with the Two Goofy Birds Return from Mardis Gras. Alas, not possible because I cannot find the cord to my camera. So, no pictures of the finished piece.
I'm back from not being lost but now I see that my cord is missing - so it too is probably not lost - it just isn't here right now. So no pictures of a completed wall hanging. But!!!
I do have a picture of the quilted wall hanging

called "The Tree of Life" before it was finished. In this picture, it is hanging on the line at the quilt shop Red Red Bobbin where it was machine quilted, but the beads have not yet been added and the binding has not been put on.
I'm glad that it is finished. It took me seven years to complete all the applique and embroidery but it isn't because I was slow - or slower than usual. It is because I had to collect the fabric, and cut out the pieces and prepare them. I then put it aside while I worked on other things - like my dolls.
But when Uncle Jesse started to fail I would sit with him and auntie and work on the quilt and put it away when he passed at 93-almost 94 to help auntie and make more dolls. Then when auntie was failing I picked it up again after making the dolls.
I showed her the finished quilt on the Tuesday afternoon before she passed. I'd arranged for different people to sit with her and visit while I did some errands and picked up the quilt. When I got back to her room, my brother was there with her and I showed it to them and then she went to sleep. She was able to see it finished but I don't believe she really saw it. It seemed a cursory glance and then on Wednesday she asked about it.
I stayed with her and she went to sleep again. This time she didn't wake. She died on February 14th - it's nice to know that she went to be with Uncle Jesse for Valentines Day.