8 year old wisdom

The photo in this picture was taken in 2003, about 3 years before Ed lost his battle with brain cancer. He was diagnosed in 2004, and passed away in 2006.



In 2010, on our anniversary, which was April 4, I designed this little vignette, with Ed's picture when he was a little boy, and our picture from 2003. I always loved that picture of him as a kid, because he is holding an airplane. When he grew up and chose a career, it was in the military aircraft industry. The picture looks like one of our grandsons (my son's oldest) at the same age!

Fast forward to 2012.

As I was making my Dogwood Trails quilt this week, I decided to do some machine embroidery to make it more personal. I was babysitting my two grandchildren (not the same one as mentioned above), and my big boy MAC, who will turn 8 next Saturday, was very curious as to what I was doing. He was interested to see a sewing machine that could run by itself, and he was watching what the words were spelling out.

When I told him my idea for the four blocks, he had a different idea.

This one says our names.
This is our wedding date.
This is a personal message to my late husband, and to all my family.

And this one is the one the 8 year old thought I should change. He said, "It should say--You are here with us" because he reasoned that if we were thinking of Grandpa Ed, then it was the same as if he were here with us, not gone.

Now, can you beat that wisdom?




So, I need to embroider one more block, probably to put on the back of the quilt, with those wise words on them. Yes, Ed is in all of our hearts. We will think of you when your birthday comes upnext week on March 27. The kids will probably gather over at my house, expecting beef stroganoff for dinner, which was your favorite birthday food. We will think of you again on our anniversary, April 4. And so many other things remind us of you. Your tools in the basement, your personal items stored in special places in our bedroom, remembering your funny sayings, and that precious picture from 2003.

This is a nostalgic time of year for me. The rest of the year, I just kind of float along living my life as a widow, a single person, trying to make the best of it, and trying not to dwell in the past. But for the next few weeks, I'm going to indulge in nostalgic thoughts of the years we had together, and how much I do miss you and the life we shared for 42 years, my darling Ed.