Tender Mercies

At Aaron's memorial service I bore my testimony that despite the pain and the grief and the fear with everything we were going through, that my testimony of the Lord's tender mercies and his love for ME had been strengthened.  And it's true.  And I've decided that this is evidence.

This is Aaron's quilt.

I fell in love with quilting right at the end of college and the beginning of our marriage.  Most of the quilts I make are baby quilts -- I love the small size and the purpose behind them -- to cuddle a baby in love.  But I don't typically make them using novelty quilting fabrics.  I love a more traditional quilt look in the smaller size.  The pattern for Aaron's quilt is one I fell in love with at the International Quilt Festival in Houston.  Originally I picked up some robot fabric for the backing and then changed my mind and found this adorable planes fabric.  After piecing the front, it sat on my design wall for a long time.  I just couldn't decide how to quilt it -- my hand or machine and what pattern to do.

On Sunday, February 16th, we were in the final stretch of preparing for the baby.  My mom wasn't due to arrive until the following Wednesday but I had completely dismantled my sewing room to give her a nice guest room space for her visit.  That morning I felt a complete urgency to finish the quilt.  I had dismissed the feeling before because none of my other kid's quilts were finished when they were born and I thought I would have time, maybe even to quilt it in the hospital.  But seriously that Sunday morning I decided I had to finish it.  I put my sewing table back together and set up my machine for quilting and then I stayed home with sick kids (volunteered actually) so that I could quilt during naptime.  It's a small quilt so it didn't take long and then I sewed on the binding while watching Downton Abbey and finished about 10:30 p.m.

At 1:30 a.m. I woke up panicked that I hadn't felt any movement from the baby and took myself to the hospital.  I stayed in the hospital for 2 days and was delivered by c-section on Tuesday, February 18th.  Aaron died on Monday, February 26th at 4:00 a.m.  And I was able to wrap him in his quilt. 

The promptings of the Spirit come in many different forms.and I don't know that I've ever felt it like this before but I believe that the Lord is mindful of us and he knew the desires of my heart.  It's a very small and simple thing that doesn't perhaps matter in the long run.  That quilt will fall apart and be lost to the ages like everything else temporal, but it mattered to me that I could wrap Aaron in it as a symbol of how much I love him and I think that the Lord knew that, knew what Aaron's journey on earth would be, and what I needed to get out of it.  And that tender mercy is something that I will treasure always.