"A Project with a Purpose" by Ashleigh

I have been planning on sharing a story with all of you for quite some time now but it hasn’t work out. There has always been something that just happened and was time sensitive to share with all of you. So, this story kept getting pushed back.

It all started over a year ago now. Pati, Jocelin and I were the only ones that lived in the basement at the time. (Hard to remember what that was like!) :) Pati came home from market one day with a twinkle in her eye. She showed me the tablecloth that she had bought to sew as a surprise for my mother. I wasn’t allowed to breath a word of it to mom and so I didn’t. Pati started working on it diligently at first. It was a rather overwhelming project and at times it got put to the side as life would get crazy.

When I returned to Mexico after my brothers wedding I spent several weeks cleaning out Pati’s room and organizing things after she passed away. It felt like I was just a bit closer to her for a little longer. As I was going through a stack of things I ran across the tablecloth. I asked Julie if I could have it and she said “yes”. I spent several days debating what I should do with it. Pati had only finished one clump of flowers out of 12. I had toyed with the idea of making one myself but didn’t know if I wanted to tackle a project like that. Plus, Pati had chosen very Mexico colors like florescent pink! It was very Pati but didn’t exactly flow with the colors in my mothers dinning room. :) However, I also knew that I wasn’t going to be able to just throw it away. So, after thinking about it for several days I decided to finish it.

Looking back my decision was very much led by God. I spent 5 months working on it almost every evening. Many times as I would sit in my room and work on it I would listen to audio sermons and lectures that my brothers had given me. It was a blessing to my soul that was greatly needed at that time and I can now see how God was ministering to my spirit.

I had to really push to get it done by the time that I went home in February so that it would be ready to give to my mom. Right before I left I had Lucy get a picture of me with it so that I could post it here. My mother loved it (and cried when I told her the story just like I thought she would). :) Much thanks goes out to Rosa who was the patient teacher and showed me how to crochet the edging around it to finish it off.