It Takes a Village

A group of families in our neighborhood, all of whom have young kids and only a small fraction of whom we actually know, got together to make this lovely quilt for us in Hudson’s memory. A few moms did the piece work, another mom quilted everything together, and then each of a large number of families worked to tie the pieces of wool yarn at each corner where the pieces come together. The result, as you can see, is stunning, both visually and symbolically.

Back in my church-going days in high school, I used to attend an Episcopal youth conference at Kanuga in Hendersonville, NC every year during the week between Christmas and New Year’s. It was called Winterlight. Someone with a better memory than mine can tell me at which Winterlight the following thing happened (and if someone has a picture handy, I’d be happy to post it here, too). A large group of kids, maybe 25-50 or so, stood in a circle with a ball of yarn. One person started with the ball of yarn, held the end, and tossed the yarn across the circle to another person, (and I think they were supposed to say something they valued about that person). The second person held the yarn and tossed the ball across to someone else, and so on. I may not have the process just right, but you can picture how this progressed—bit by bit, strand by strand, a giant web of yarn was formed inside this circle. The point, of course, was to show how community is created between individuals, what a critical role each individual plays in the community, how a community is stronger than each of its individual parts, and how each of our lives touches many, many other lives in ways we don’t always realize.

When one of the neighborhood moms delivered this quilt the other day on behalf of all the families who helped make it, the yarn web from nearly 20 years ago is what came to my mind. Hudson touched so many lives in ways we never realized, and the community that has formed around and underneath us as a result is lifting us up in so many ways, both tangible and intangible. This quilt, and everything it represents about what is good and kind in the world, is my One Good Thing today. Many, many thanks to the Brookland families who made it for their love and support, and to everyone else who is part of our web.