I miss my family. Actually I think it not only makes me a teensy bit sad that I can’t be near them and want to be, but also that they don’t know me now. And I don’t know them really. Don’t we change so much in 12+ years? I know I have. I’ve grown in depth, heart, and soul. I’m sure that they too have changed and grown. I think it’s unfortunate that we don’t know eachother a bit better.

I reckon I wish that my dad knew my children. I wish they could draw him pictures and write “To Grandpa” on it. I think sometimes that nothing would make me happier than for my kids to know where I came from. To know the people I loved for a lifetime. And to grow up in the same area and around the same people that put such a lasting ingredient in the recipe that made me me.

I can tell them how wonderful honeysuckle smells and how fun it is to suck the nectar out like a butterfly. I can try to paint a picture for them that will allow them to know the magic of lightning bugs, weeping willows, and hot March afternoons. Or how wonderful keylime pie is. Or how much fun it is to pick your own pecans and put them into some delicious goppy snacky food. I will try to explain how amazing Fall leaves look there. How the trees looks like they are on fire with red, yellow and orange all at the same time.

I can tell them how Meme used to take me to feed the ducks. She always had Booberry cereal in her cubbards (ohhh, I loved that!). She had her freezer full of pudding pops and after she’d give us one, we’d sneak back in and eat 5 or 6 more. Her pekingese scared me– maybe it was the snarling teeth or the constant attempt to hump my leg. Maybe I’ll leave off the leg humping part when I tell them stories…

I loved my Grandaddy somethin’ fierce. He gave me my first job when I was 14 in his plumbing shop. I earned $3 an hour pretty much doing nothing. I would walk by his office over and over hoping he’d notice me and invite me in to talk with him for a spell. I saved my money that summer to buy a cockatiel, a cage, and colorful sparkling pretties to hang in it.

They came to all of my pageants in high school and cheered me on. And then I was chasing boys and driving my sports car and I pretty much kept driving for years and years. I wasn’t running from my family, but I wasn’t running to them either. Then life slowed down and I found myself 10+ years older and 2000 miles away from all of those people/places/memories. I live a beautiful, blessed life. But I often wish it weren’t too far away. If I could jump in my car and visit with Meme, Grandaddy, Dad, Nana, Candace, Chanda, the honeysuckle, the magnolia trees, lightning bugs, hot March afternoons…

To help me along with the homesickness and that yucky feeling I sometimes get where I feel like I’m missing out on something back there (and I AM), I decided to use quilting for therapy. I’m going to make a few quilts for people I love back home so that I feel a part of that again. “Wrap ‘em in love” sounds corny. But I’m a corny kind of gal. So there.

This one is going to be for my MeMe. It’s been a real stinker, so I hope she knows I love her. I have the sores on my fingers to show for it! Those rotary cutters, hot irons, and sewing needles are dangerous! And I almost decided to just hang myself with the 200 feet of binding because ugghh…. I. Hate. Binding.

Isn’t it purty? You better say yes–Don’t make me poke you with a sewing needle.