patchwork people

   My birthday is in December, so it seems only fitting that I celebrate it like the miraculous oil of Hanukkah – I make the celebration last for at least a week.  Dinner parties, coffee dates, spa treatments, game nights, and marathon writing sessions combine for a great seven day blitz. 

Two nights ago I met my friend for dessert to continue my birthday bender.  He asked me how I felt about my age, and I told him that unlike most girls, I don’t care if people know how old I am (for the record, I’m 33.)  I don’t dread birthdays like I used to; instead, I celebrate them with deep gratitude, because every year I live past my cancer diagnosis feels like a major feat.

As we chatted over chocolate cake and peppermint tea, the conversation turned from living to dying, and he asked if I’d regret dying without ever being married.

I’ve never been asked that question before, but I didn’t have to think long about my answer. 

“Nope,” I said.

“Why not?” he asked.

I thought back to earlier this week, when my 84-year-old neighbor invited me over for cookies and tea, and showed me all the yellowed photographs and handmade quilts she’d amassed in the hope chest her husband made her when they were courting. 

We sat on her bedroom floor packing all of her treasures back into the chest, and she got teary at the memory of her deceased husband and her adult children who have all moved away.

“I’d like to adopt you,” she said.  “Could you use another grandma?”

“Absolutely,” I said, because my biological family members (whom I love dearly) all live thousands of miles away, and because you can’t ever have too many grandma’s.  

As she carefully arranged everything in the trunk,  she asked me to tell her about the book I just finished writing.

I described the plot of the book, which explains how my life intersected with a family of Somali refugees last year. I told her I was proud of what I’d written.  “When authors write about their lives, they often fudge the facts, but this is 100% true,” I said.  “There aren’t even any composite characters.”

She asked me what a composite character was.

“It’s when you take traits from different people and combine them into a single character in a book,” I explained.

She still looked confused, so I tried a different explanation.  “You know how you use different pieces of fabric to make a patchwork quilt?” I asked.   “Sometimes writers create patchwork people.”

“Oh, I see,” she said, and with her wrinkled fingers she gently smoothed the quilt she’d made for her husband when they were first married.

As I considered my friend’s question about why I wouldn’t regret dying single, I took another bite of chocolate cake, and washed it down with a sip of tea.  “I feel like my life partner is a composite character,” I said.  “Different traits from different people in my life combine to make me feel valued and challenged and known and loved, and that’s enough for me.”

As I drove home that night,  I thought about my elderly neighbor who has adopted me.  I thought about the guys in Portland who are like my brothers, and the close female friends who are as dear as sisters.  I remembered the Somali girls and my friend’s two kids (whom I’ve nicknamed Lewis & Clark) – and how I love them as if they were my own children.

And my heart welled up with thankfulness for birthdays and chocolate cake and peppermint tea and cancer anniversaries and biological as well as adopted families –  and for the grace God has shown me through the beloved patchwork people in my life.

Advertisement