A Quilt for Pat Taliaferro

by Carole Carter
(Hendersonville, North Carolina)

Disappearing Nine Patch for Pat

A Quilt for Pat Taliaferro
By Carole Carter

In May 2008, my mother became very ill. Driving herself to the emergency room, she was admitted to the hospital. As I live over a thousand miles away in North Carolina, I couldn’t be there in the beginning. My cousin Pat, who lives just a few blocks away from my mother, came to the rescue.

Over the four weeks my mother was in the hospital, she drove the hour and a half to the hospital in downtown Houston almost daily to support and encourage my mother through a harrowing ordeal of endless tests, major surgery and recovery. Pat quietly kept the bills paid, organized the neighbors to take care of the cat, kept my mother’s house clean in case someone needed to stay there, got mom’s car inspected, made countless phone calls to provide information and support to the rest of the family and friends, and did so much more behind the scenes all while taking care of her own home and family.

It went on after Mom got home. Pat arranged for another cousin to come stay with Mom during the first 10 days she was home so she wouldn’t be alone if she needed help. After that, Pat coordinated all the people at Mom’s office, church and neighborhood for a steady stream of visitors, household help with cleaning and chores, and food delivery for the next couple of months. She was there to drive my mom to her doctor appointments, tests and treatments, and through two rounds of chemotherapy lasting more than eight months.

She never said one word about it being hard or difficult. In fact, she sent me a card when Mom got out of the hospital assuring me that what she was doing was not a burden. How do you thank someone for giving so much of herself without a thought for herself? Maybe it can’t really be done, but a quilt is a start.

Before I went to see my mother at the time of her surgery, I began contacting friends to exchange blocks so the quilt I made for her would be many different prints. I wanted it to represent all the different things she had done. I cut out 6-inch squares and made the quilt with the pattern Disappearing Nine Patch. In a way, the pattern itself matches her deeds, as the underlying nine patches are obscured in the final design, just as all her work stayed in the background. Today my mother is doing well and back home. And I hope the quilt will tell the story of Pat’s unselfish and generous gift of love.