After my father died last February, my cousin J told my mother that she wanted his shirts so she could make quilts out of them for my brother and me. I didn’t have too much of a reaction to it at the time but now that the quilts are apparently in progress I’m finding myself more than a little appalled at the notion.
This particular cousin is not I think quite in her right mind at the moment. Her younger son blew his head off toward the end of last year. Didn’t leave any sort of explanation but consensus of opinion on this side of the family is that he was gay and about to enter the military and couldn’t handle it. So yeah, I think she has a bit of a screw loose and that’s why she thinks I’d ever want to sleep under a blanket made out my dead father’s clothes.
People respond SO differently to death. Personally, I wish someone had made me a quilt with some of my dad’s shirts. They all went to the Goodwill instead. If you don’t like or want the quilt after it is made you could always donate it.
I don’t know if it’s appalling…just someone dealing differently with death than you do.
You probably don’t want it on your bed or hanging on your wall (I wouldn’t) but it won’t hurt to keep it wrapped up in a box in storage. If you ever feel like taking it out, it’s there for you. If not, it’s out of sight/out of mind.
If she asks you why you don’t have it displayed in the house or aren’t sleeping with it, simply tell her you are not ready to deal with dad’s death in that way just yet but thank you for the gesture.
Honestly, I think that’s one of the less creepy, and actually kind of sweet, ways of “memorializing” someone that I’ve heard. I completely understand why you wouldn’t want to sleep under that quilt, but it makes her feel better to do it, and it costs you nothing to accept it and store it in a closet.
It’s likely I’ll never see this cousin again, except maybe at my mother’s funeral, so once I write the thank you note it’ll probably never come up again.
The memory quilt isn’t such a bad idea. I like it better than sleeping with a photo of the deceased–which is what a friend of mine has been doing, among other things.
I know someone who has one of those and keeps it prominently displayed in her bedroom (it’s of her deceased husband and in addition to it being made out of his former shirts, there are “photo” squares as well).
I think the general idea looks very tasteful and it has indeed been a comforting presense for her and the family when they visit. As to the picture parts, I suppose that’s more subjective. I personally wouldn’t rather have anything like that I couldn’t frame, but I can understand the appeal.
My mom is a professional quilter and has made a number of shirt quilts for people. Usually they’re for living people - for instance, she made a quilt of t-shirts from triathlon events for a young woman who’s a competitive triathlete - but I read her the OP, and she told me she’s made a few quilts of shirts of deceased people as a memorial. She doesn’t think it’s creepy, that it’s a nice way to stay close to someone who’s no longer around.
So it’s not really an unusual idea. I can understand why you wouldn’t want to sleep under your father’s shirts, though. I say, wait until you see the finished product. You may change your mind. If you still think it’s creepy, just tuck it into a closet and only bring it out when your cousin comes to visit.
It’s an old-fashioned idea. My mother’s mother kept a collection of clothing scraps from family members and used them to make quilts. Remembering that a particular person wore a particular piece of clothing was definitely part of the point. This was in a rural community where people were frugal and a lot of clothing was homemade, of course.
I’ve also heard of people doing it with baby clothes that they are fond of, but which are too worn or stained to donate or hand down.
I agree that the types of memorials that people want vary a lot. When my husband’s mother died, his sister basically created a shrine to her in her apartment, using almost all of her mother 's furniture. My husband just kept some photographs and a few pieces of jewelry.
I think the quilt idea is rather sweet. When my wife died, I slept with her pajamas wrapped around a teddy bear. To each his/her own when it comes to finding comfort in the face of grief.
I do think there tends to be a gender divide when it comes to memorializing the dead. As I read somewhere a long time ago, women build shrines and men hire dumpsters. Both are perfectly normal reactions to loss, IMHO.
I’m really not proselytizing here but this happened while I was exploring what church might be able to do for me. Older woman described this, with her husband sitting right beside her…
"In 1950 (-something) we were expecting our first child. When the baby came, he was stillborn. My husband immediately went out and bought an Airstream, and as soon as I got out of the hospital, he took me on a looooong trip across country. If I tried to bring up the topic of the baby, he’d change the subject. I began to wonder what sort of man I’d married.
“Fast-forward many years. Our son’s wife went into the hospital to have their child. The doctor came out and said there might be problems. At this point, my husband completely melted and was inconsolable. He had held onto the pain all those years, you see, and this finally triggered it.”
My moral to the story: don’t read much into how people deal (or don’t) with death. Some just can’t face it, so they delay for years or even decades.
The thing that leaps out at me about the quilt: smell. I don’t mean “stinky, go take a shower,” but something more like a fingerprint. We all have one…isn’t this why women often wrap themselves in an old shirt of their man when they go to bed?
After my paternal grandfather passed, my sister made a small, simple teddy bear for me from a pair of his well worn, soft, faded, engineer striped bibbed overalls.
That’s been 25 years ago and Homer the teddy bear is still around…a sweet reminder of a much beloved grandpa.
I also have a quilt that my g-grandmother made with scraps from my baby clothes, one of her dresses and a few odd and end bits of clothing from my mom and granny. It, too is a reminder of those who love me.
As DianaG said, you can store it if you don’t want to look at it right now. One day, perhaps it will mean more to you.
I think people do deal with different things differently. After my mother in law died, I had her costume jewelry. It was not anything I would wear mostly, and not worth anything to the estate. Still, I did not particularly like to think of it going into the dumpster or to the second hand store. So far I have made a rosary from part of it and gave it to one of her sisters. Another of her sisters is no longer catholic so I expect to make a story bracelet for her, and also for her daughter, my mother in law’s niece.
I am still mulling over her brother, however, and may wind up making something for his wife instead. If I could think of something for him I would do that but so far inspration has not struck.
I will say, I waited a year before beginning, and gave it to her on the anniversary of her sister’s death, as I knew it would be a difficult time for her. People often think you have to be done, to have moved on, but the anniversaries still resonate.
I have quilts planned for some of her favorite clothes, but I plan to give them to her grandchildren. For them the clothes are associated with her, not necessarily with her loss.
Everyone is different, and if you do not want it or find it upsetting you surely do not have to accept it of course. But I think the kinder thing would be to cherish the gift of her work and caring for you and leave the gift of the quilt itself with your mother, your brother, or someone else close to you.
On request, I have sewn a couple of singlets up out of my friend’s deceased Dad’s old shirts. They came out quite nice and she really liked them.
I would have long since forgotten about them except she sometimes calls me on Father’s Day to say she is wearing one and how much it means to her. People are different.
When one of my dear friends was killed in a motorcycle accident, his Mom made a quilt of all his old shirts. With the fabric left over, she made small, quilted star ornaments for all his friends. The one I received is made from a shirt that he wore in a photograph of the two of us together, something his Mom could not have known, but which means the world to me.
My father died about 4 years ago at Christmastime, after a year-long illness. One of my mother’s friends had me get my father’s clothes together because she was going to make a quilt from his shirts. It has given her so much comfort, especially in the beginning. She didn’t even have her cat to comfort her anymore, since he died two weeks before my father.
The quilt is on her bed and she uses it in the living room when it’s cold during the winter.
Every time my 2 1/2 year old grows out of her clothes and it’s time to prune her wardrobe, I save some of my favorites for my sister-in-law to make a quilt. I’ll give it to my daughter on her 16th or 18th birthday or when she gets married, I don’t know yet. Some of the clothes, I’ll just give to her when she has a baby. I wish my mother had saved a few more of my baby clothes, but admittedly, since it was the early 70s, the shit is uuurrrrrgly!
There was a young woman in our community who was raped. Her mother gathered shirts from the trusted men in her life - her father, her uncles, her brothers, her pastor - and made a quilt out of them. She can literally wrap herself in the loving support of men, and know that they’re not all monsters like the man who raped her.