An Old Meaningful Blog Post

I love going back through my old blog posts. It’s usually when I’m looking for something . . which I rarely find, but I find other gems . . sometimes stories that make me cry and sometimes stories that make me laugh and often stories that make me say “Why do I have any blog readers?”

This story is from March of 2005 and I’m sure some of you “old timers” have read it several times. The title was “Opportunities Come in the Strangest Places”. Reading this story, 13 years later, tears are rolling down my cheeks. I would like to add that the dentist and his assistants took care of getting the quilts to these kids and then the dentist sent me a wonderful card and gift basket for having been so kind.

Here’s the blog post:

Some time last year, early Spring I know now, I read in the paper about a fairly young mother of four children, pregnant with her fifth child who had died. The paper listed the church she attended and it happened to be the same church the girl who cuts my hair attends so I asked Robin about this lady. She told me that it was really sad. The lady homeschooled her 3 school age children, got sick and there were complications and she just died — something fairly simple that affected her heart as I recall. Then in January (2005) I was at the dentist with my son for a checkup. Our dentist is always so busy and it takes forever to get an appointment. Chad had a cavity and as we were leaving and I was trying to make an appointment after school, they told me they had a cancellation for “tomorrow”. I hesitated — who wants to go to the dentist two days in a row — but went ahead because it would probably have been 6 months before I could have gotten another appointment. So, back to the dentist on Tuesday afternoon. We walked in and there was an older lady (not really old but I doubted the children were her children) sitting there with three children. I just KNEW those children belonged to the lady who died. I don’t know how I knew it but I did. The children were well mannered and very cute. The dental assistant called for “Anna” and the lady told her that Anna would be coming with her dad so they took back another child. Then dad came in with Anna, a lively 4 year old. The lady explained to me that he was her brother. I guess she thought I might wonder why she left when dad arrived. While waiting for Chad, I was working on binding on a quilt. Anna walked over and commented on the quilt. Dad said something like “Mom would like that. She loved quilts.” Anna said “Oh, dad. . you know mom is far, far away in heaven!” Ughhh, now I KNEW it was those kids. So, the next day I called the dentist and inquired. Yes, those were the children whose mom had died. I told them I wanted to make quilts for the kids but I wanted to drop them at the dentist office because I didn’t want them to know who had given the quilts. Then, I’m nosey so I went back and found the obituary in the newspaper archives online. Get this: The mom’s maiden name . . full name . . first, middle and last was the same as my first, middle and last maiden name — Judy Lynn Miller! How weird is that? Think I was at the dentist office two days in a row for a reason?

Here are the quilts:

The first one was for the older girl. I had been playing with these blocks so this top was made and only needed quilting and binding.

Chad had been with me at a quilt shop and had seen this eagle fabric and wanted it so I had been working on fussy cutting these blocks. When I told him the story about the kids losing their mom, he thought this would be a good quilt for one of the boys.

Vince’s niece had a little boy that loved frogs and I had started this quilt for him. I did make him another quilt later.

My niece had a little girl who loved Dora and this quilt was for her. I’m sure she got something else but I don’t even remember what I made for her.

Good memories!