Elizabeth’s Quilt
THE STALE, LATE-AFTERNOON AIR hung heavily in the small chapel as the bishop stood at the pulpit reading the usual announcements. The stifling heat, close quarters, and crying babies bred inattention among the congregation—until the bishop suddenly paused and became more serious than usual. “Elizabeth,” he began, “went into premature labor last week.” Only then did I notice that her place at the organ was occupied by another.
I didn’t know Elizabeth well, even though we both lived in small, identical apartments within the same building of university housing. Side by side in our cinderblock cells, Elizabeth and I existed on the same plane without ever crossing paths. I could say I didn’t know her well because I was new in the ward and worked full-time. But it was more than that. I just didn’t see a reason to know her well. She looked like she had stepped out of a photograph from the pioneer era, her plain face unadorned with makeup, her brown hair hanging long down her back. She wore special organ-playing shoes to church each Sunday. In social situations she was quiet, pulled back inside of herself. “Not my type of friend,” I thought dismissively of her, when I thought of her at all. Shaded by pride from the graceful light of charity, my heart was small and dark, seeds of goodness lying dormant within.
As the bishop solemnly announced that Elizabeth’s baby had died shortly after birth, I felt a sense of helpless sorrow. Cradling my own belly, bulging with new life, I found it painfully easy to imagine her grief. I pictured her on a hospital bed, holding a tiny baby girl, weeping as the fragile life slowly slipped back into the eternities.
There is something about tragedy that humanizes a person. I suddenly saw past the hair and the shoes and I recognized a real person enduring real pain. Something stirred within my heart: a growth, a beginning. Feeling sorrow for Elizabeth and guilt for my own uncharitable thoughts, I wondered what I could do for her. Then the bishop announced that the family wanted to be left alone for a while, that they wanted to grieve in private. Secretly, I was relieved. After all, I hardly knew her—what could I, a mere acquaintance, do to assuage her grief?
At first I didn’t say anything to Elizabeth out of respect for her wishes. After a while, I began to feel uncomfortable with her grief. I was afraid that talking about it would be like touching a raw wound. What if my words, meant to comfort, actually caused her pain? And how does one approach such a serious topic in casual conversation anyway? “Hi, I know we’ve never really talked before, but I just wanted to say I’m sorry that your baby died.” Now that I think of it, I guess I could have said just that. But I didn’t. And every time I was in the same room with Elizabeth I felt awkwardly aware that I had never voiced my compassion. My awkwardness grew, hedge-like, between me and my best intentions. Elizabeth and I remained nodding acquaintances.
Almost four months had passed since her tragedy when Elizabeth stood up in Relief Society to make an announcement. “I’m making a quilt for my baby that died,” she stated, saying those heart-stopping words—baby, died—in a simple, matter-of-fact way. “I have a goal to finish it by her due date, but I only have a couple of weeks left. There’s no way I can do it alone. I need help.” Looking out at the room full of Relief Society sisters, she asked us to come to her home and help her finish the quilt. I was struck by the thought that here was something I could do for Elizabeth. Maybe helping her with her quilt would bring some peace to my troubled conscience.
I showed up at Elizabeth’s house one afternoon, with babe in arms, to find several sisters from the ward seated around a large, beautiful quilt. Examining the intricate patchwork design and squares of embroidered flowers, I could tell that Elizabeth had already devoted many long hours to her creation. I felt honored that she would trust me to be involved. I sat down and spent the next hour awkwardly working a needle in and out of fabric, crookedly outlining the shape of a heart. I was a clumsy quilter, my stitches long and uneven. I apologized for my inexperience, but Elizabeth shrugged it off with a smile and the words, “It doesn’t have to be perfect. I’m just grateful for your help.” Elizabeth’s kindness and acceptance filled my hesitant heart with warmth and light, and I turned to it like a plant to the sun, eager to feel its nourishing rays.
As the due date drew nearer, women of the ward worked day after day to help Elizabeth finish, leaving only to cook for husbands and put children to bed, then returning to quilt some more. I learned many things about Elizabeth as I sat in her home and shared in her labor. I learned that she was intelligent, had a keen sense of humor, and that she was ambitious. Indeed, the size and quality of her undertaking would have intimidated even the most experienced quilter. But not Elizabeth. When one of the women asked why she didn’t just finish it by machine, Elizabeth was firm in her resolve. “I want it to be done by hand,” she said with determination and vision. I began not only to care for Elizabeth, but to admire her.
Soon it was nearly midnight on the due date of Elizabeth’s baby. As the slowest quilter in the group, I was the last to finish my stretch of binding, my fingers sore from hours of working with a needle. Everyone else had gone home, and Elizabeth sat writing in her journal as I tied my last knot and clipped the thread. I felt reluctant to leave Elizabeth’s home; I sensed it had become hallowed ground, a temple of sacred service. As I looked with pleasure upon the finished quilt, a new emotion welled up within me, filling my soul with warmth. It was then that I recognized what I had sewn, stitch by clumsy stitch, into her quilt. Not sympathy, not admiration, not even affection. It was holier than that. It was charity. I was surprised to find it there—to discover that it had come from the same heart that had harbored unkind feelings only months before. But how had the change happened? I was not that good, not naturally. It must have been—it can only have been—by divine grace. A seed of Christ-like love had taken root in my heart—sprouting from sorrow, then stretching beyond my hedge of awkwardness to reach the light until it finally emerged in full blossom. There it lay—in my crooked heart stitched next to the purple flowers.
Julie Donaldson grew up all over the world as the daughter of an Air Force fighter pilot. She earned a BA in English from BYU after serving a mission to the Philippines. When she’s not consumed by full-time motherhood, sheÊis anÊaspiring ballerina, aÊprofessional accompanist, a clumsy quilter, and an ambitious story-teller. Julie lives in Salt Lake City with her husband and three children.
